Filed under: Ford, Earnings/Financials
Mark Fields under fire for expensive flights home
Steve Wilson, a reporter for WXYZ Channel 7 in Detroit, has taken the President of the Americas for Ford Motor Company, Mark Fields, to task for the weekly flights the executive takes from Detroit to his home in Delray Beach, Florida. Fields uses a company jet for the flights, which itself isn't the issue since the trips are approved by his employment contract. Wilson, however, estimates that each weekly trip costs between $50,000 and $70,000, essentially an entire year's salary for many who work at Ford. Those high figures include the cost of flying one passenger with a crew of three, and either putting the crew up in a luxury hotel for the weekend or having the jet return to Detroit and fly back to fetch Fields before Monday. Fields has been quoted as saying, "We are making sacrifices at every level." The person who hired Fields, ex-CEO Bill Ford Jr., surely made sacrifices. The great-grandson of Henry Ford announced he would forego any and all compensation back in May of 2005 until his family's company begins turning a profit again. Of course, Mark Fields is not a member of the Ford family and no expects him to forego a salary, which last year reportedly amounted to $3 million including a $1 million bonus. Wilson, however, clearly sees the hypocrisy of an executive asking his workforce to sacrifice their wages, health care and even their jobs while he drains the company of funds he could cleary afford to cover himself.
The weekly trips home on the company jet are seen by Ford as an incentive to attract and retain talent the automaker sorely needs to turn its fortunes around. Hopefully Mark Fields is the man for that job, and if he succeeds we won't say a word every time he boards the Blue Oval jet. But at this moment when Ford is struggling to remain solvent, even if the overall impact is minimal, the gesture of foregoing some of those expensive perks goes a long way.
Thanks to Joe for the tip!
[Source: WXYZ.com]
_opt_thumbnail.jpg)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gardiner Westbound 3:11PM (11/15/2006)
Ford Motor Company is probably picking up the cost of Field's Detroit weekday accommodation too.
High priced executives are usually better at talking the talk than walking the walk. UAW members have every right to be furious.
Reply
DriftPunch 3:22PM (11/15/2006)
"The weekly trips home on the company jet are seen by Ford as an incentive to attract and retain talent the automaker sorely needs to turn its fortunes around"
The only time that 'that type' of talent is needed, is when a merger/dissolution/going public artist is needed. Ergo, someone who can run the gauntlet between lawers, stockholders, creditors, and regulators. Ford needs a business manager, not a wall street whiz.
This guy is not much of a business manager, if he can rationalize 3+ million annually for his own trips home. FLY FIRST CLASS DOUCHEBAG! He sets quite a tone, doesn't he.
Reply
Steve 3:29PM (11/15/2006)
I have to agree.. the man can save the company money while flying first class. Some of the CEO's now a days are just over compensated beyond imagination. I true CEO would really suck it up and stand in the shoes of his employees, and walk the walk.
Reply
whofan 3:33PM (11/15/2006)
This is exactly why there is a UAW. I do think the UAW should bend more than they do, but look at what goes on in the upper level of employment. So why should they? Ford turning around is going to take a team effort.The people on the shop floor are important too.
Some of these exects should leed by example.
Reply
Ken 3:34PM (11/15/2006)
Can anyone stick up for Fields? All I can think of when I see/hear his name is the mullet on his head. Mark Fields, and I hate to say this, but J. Mayes, are the most over-rated, under achieving employees at Ford. And I'm a Ford fan, and way-too loyal of a customer. I guess the plane trips give a whole new meaning to gas-guzzling. But there really is no difference is what Fields does and what the Hollywood/Enviromentalist crowd does in preaching driving a Prius and then take private jets because they can.
Reply
Dan 3:40PM (11/15/2006)
The more power to him for negotiating a better compensation package!
If you, autoblog, or Steve Wilson think his compensation package is excessive, then take it up with those that hired him and approved the package, and when it comes time to renegotiate, change it up or fire him.
If ford thinks they can attract the talent they need without such perks, then next time they should not offer them. As it stands, dont rag on the guy for accepting what is effectively part of his salary.
Reply
Paul 3:46PM (11/15/2006)
Dan... i was going to type up a big long response about how you are technically right but morally misguided, but instead I am just going to call you an idiot.
Reply
Big Rocket 3:55PM (11/15/2006)
#1 (Gardiner Westbound): "UAW members have every right to be furious."
No, they don't. The lesser of two evils is not a saint. And it is common knowledge that the UAW has done its fair share of damaging Detroit's global competitiveness.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/10/nissan-may-buy-shuttered-gm-and-ford-plants/#comments
Reply
Mark Graban 3:56PM (11/15/2006)
With his mullet, I suppose Fields' sacrifice is not getting a good haircut.
I blogged about this too, it's not very "Lean" to behave that way, as an exec:
http://kanban.blogspot.com/2006/11/sacrifices-at-every-level-but-top.html
Reply
Alan H. 4:02PM (11/15/2006)
I would estimate that all of the fuel used on these trips completely erases the benefit of a year's worth of Mercury Mariner Hybrids. This makes Bill Ford look hypocritical when preaching about being "green".
Reply
Derek Jones 4:08PM (11/15/2006)
It would be great if he worked out a deal with Make-A-Wish and took a family with a sick kid along for the ride so they could spend a week in Disney World. Otherwise it's just spending $3 million year that Ford desperately needs.
Reply
RP 4:09PM (11/15/2006)
Look -- last week Ford just "found" an extra $550 million in Q3 earnings. HALF A BILLION DOLLARS! So the CEO spends an extra $2 million... it's all paper money.
Oh, those $50-70k salaries actually cost Ford probably $200k when you count benefits, so in a year, he's spending the equivalent of < 20 employees. That's nothing for a company the size of Ford.
While it's good to focus on saving staples and paperclips, that's surely not gonna be the secret to Ford's revival.
Reply
Ty 4:14PM (11/15/2006)
Does anyone realise that's between $2,600,000 and $3,900,000 a year?!!! While that might not seem like much to many companies, Ford is definitely NOT one of those companies that can say a few million dollars is a drop in the bucket. This is money that could be much better spent towards product development...and product development and possibly even product development.
Reply
PuffyC 4:15PM (11/15/2006)
This is just another example of an inbred board using the good ole boy network to pass perks to each other. There is no free market in these packages any more than there is when Congress passes their own raises. This is also an example of something that a free market should take care of, but sometimes parts of the free market get out of control and mutate into uncontrolled chain reactions that nothing short of legislation will correct. I hate to see gov't legislate this kind of thing but then I think it's grown beyond the ability of the general public to control. Laws are for people who don't know any better and executives today surely don't.
Reply
DKB_SATX 4:22PM (11/15/2006)
Disgusting.
He could go first class every weekend of the year (and you know he probably gets a month or more of vacation so he wouldn't use all 52 trips) for less than the cost of 2 roundtrips in the company plane. About $94k for 52 last-minute fully-refundable first-class tickets between DET and MIA.
To the person assuming that actual burden for an employee is around $200k, I think that's a gross overestimate. Normal burden is significantly less than 2x salary. Even if that were the case, to say that $3M is "staples and paperclips" is to buy into the corporate stupidity that allowed this guy to get this sickening perk in the first place.
Reply
Big Rocket 4:32PM (11/15/2006)
#14 (PuffyC): "I hate to see gov't legislate this kind of thing but then I think it's grown beyond the ability of the general public to control."
Actually, it is well within the public's ability to rein in this sort of nonsense. When an automaker spends money irresponsibly, either by caving in to top management or to the UAW, it would not have enough money left over for meaningful product development, as #13 (Ty) pointed out. And when their products suffer, the public buys cars from other companies. In the long run, automakers who manage money poorly will go out of business, and those who manage money well will remain. This is the competitive nature of a free market economy, and if Ford doesn't get it, it doesn't deserve to survive.
Reply
I've heard it all before. 4:37PM (11/15/2006)
If he hitchhiked, Ford still would not be saved.
Reply
Phil 5:02PM (11/15/2006)
They gave him this perk because competition was also vying for Mark Field's services, and Ford wants him to do for them what he did for Mazda. So it happened.
$3,000,000 won't do anything for product development but design a power seat switch. BETTER ADD THREE MORE ZEROES!!! People who don't know this are the typical idiots who never research things before they critique!
The only benefit of giving up the perk would be SYMBOLISM. Getting rid of the corporate jet entirely would be a stronger symbol. But then what would Bill Ford do?
Reply
Lee Gibson 5:23PM (11/15/2006)
"When an automaker spends money irresponsibly, , the public buys cars from other companies."
Yup. And then the Big Three (2.5, whatever) get a meeting with the President and start asking for handouts.
What, you thought this was a market economy? Silly Rocket.
Reply
Aki 5:48PM (11/15/2006)
That's insane. I guess flying first class would be below him? I don't even see his bold moves. You have Freestyle about to canibalize the Edge, and a stubborn insistence on not bringing hot-selling Euro cars over.
Reply