Word: opel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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While IBM's stern dress code has been eased, Opel still follows the old one. His shirts are white oxford cloth and as buttoned down as the man. His ties are impeccable and subdued, his shoes standard-issue corporate cordovans: no buckles, tassels or other frills...
...John Opel achieved the top post by molding himself to be just what the company wanted, because that is exactly what he too wanted. Opel sees himself as something of an interchangeable part of the firm. "I'm a product of the culture of IBM, of the way we do things," he says...
Starting with the firm straight out of the University of Chicago School of Business in 1949 as a salesman in Jefferson City, Opel was soon being shifted around with dizzying frequency; he has held 19 different jobs. His career picked up fast in 1959, when he was chosen to be an administrative assistant to Thomas Watson Jr., then president, for one year. Following that, Opel began serving in a wide variety of posts, ranging from manufacturing to press relations...
...Opel today gives visitors and colleagues a sense of self-containment, but he admits to having had a wicked temper. Once when he could not get a flat tire off his Chrysler because he was turning a lug the wrong way, he became so enraged that he bashed in the side of the car. "I don't get angry the way I used to," Opel says. But the old intensity, just barely noticeable beneath the perfect manners, can still be useful. "People know that I mean what I say and that I don't suffer fools," he says...
...John Opel is a lot more than just a corporate man, but he guards his privacy as closely as his company protects its secrets. He bridles at revealing much about his background or family, plainly believing that such matters are his own business. He fought with the U.S. Army on Okinawa in World War II and was wounded in the foot by a piece of shrapnel. He and his wife Carole have three daughters and two sons. He drives himself to work in a six-year-old car whose make he will not divulge and lives in a house...