BRYCE G. HOFFMAN

Inc. - October 17, 2012
American Icon, the story of Ford's turnaround, without a government bailout, is outstanding. And it reads like a novel--although in this case a "novel" that will help you lead and run your own business better.

Time - May 25, 2012
So how did he do it? Mulally’s most important achievement was leading “a cultural revolution” at Ford, says Bryce G. Hoffman, a veteran auto journalist and the author of American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company. “When Alan joined Ford, the company was at war with itself,” says Hoffman.

Barron's - May 5, 2012
American Icon, a well-researched, lucidly written work by Detroit News reporter Bryce G. Hoffman, picks up the Ford saga with the story-so-far of current CEO Alan Mulally, the Midwesterner who rescued the company from its latest crisis. Unlike so many of his megalomaniacal predecessors, Mulally is approachable, disarmingly down-to-earth and engaging. Those were exactly the virtues needed to pull the auto maker back from the cliff it had been speeding toward, and which it almost plummeted over during the 2008-'09 Great Recession and global auto depression, when it managed to avoid going the miserable way of General Motors and Chrysler.

PBS - Nightly Business Report - April 27, 2012
“American Icon” is the story of how Alan Mulally brought Ford Motor back from the brink of failure and used everything he had learned at Boeing to turn the company around. As an outsider, Mulally went to Detroit with a different perspective that helped him bring people to the table and turn the automaker around. On a recent visit to New York, we sat down with Hoffman and talked about his new book.

Forbes - April 25, 2012
I was surprised to receive a personal phone call from Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, in 2009. He simply wanted to compliment me on an article that I had written about the power of optimism. I thanked him and asked how things were going at Ford. Mulally impressed me with his passion and optimism. “Carmine, to serve is to live and I am so honored to serve our Ford customers, employees, dealers, investors, suppliers and communities,” he said. “We have the very best cars and trucks in the world: quality, fuel-efficient, safe, smart, fun and a great value!” I thought it was fun, but a bit out of context, to get a personal call from the Ford CEO since I don’t even cover the auto industry. I know why he called me after speaking to Bryce Hoffman, a reporter for The Detroit News and the author of a new book titled, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company.

Los Angeles Times - April 15, 2012
In his new book "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company," author Bryce G. Hoffman, a veteran reporter with the Detroit News, details "one of the greatest turnarounds in business history" and, to a lesser extent, the man behind it.

Fortune - April 12, 2012
Unable to accommodate a deluge of requests from writers eager to document its revival under Mulally, Ford chose Hoffman, a reporter for the Detroit News, and granted him unique access to tell its story without editorial oversight. It chose wisely. Hoffman has produced a book brimming with smart observations and fresh insights into Ford's success.

Rockford Register Star - April 9, 2012
We all have heard about the success of the auto company Ford. Tidbits like they didn’t take any Federal money while GM and Chrysler did; both GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy while Ford was on the brink of bankruptcy; Ford is now very profitable, etc. I’m currently reading the book American Icon written by Bryce Hoffman, an auto journalist since 1988 who started covering Ford since 2005 while with the Detroit News. While I’m not finished with the book, the early chapters reveal some of the strategies that were used.

New York Times - March 31, 2012
In “American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company” (Crown Business: $26), Bryce G. Hoffman recounts the turnaround in careful, often gripping detail. A reporter for The Detroit News who has covered Ford for six years, Mr. Hoffman bases his account on more than 100 interviews and access to a range of company documents and personal notes of participants. (This access, Mr. Hoffman writes, came without Ford exerting any control over what he wrote.) A result is a compelling narrative that reads more like a thriller than a business book.

Louisville Courier-Journal - March 31, 2012
Relaying anecdotes from senior executives of key moments during Ford’s comeback, Detroit News reporter Bryce Hoffman follows Mulally’s trail in “American Icon: Alan Mulally and The Fight To Save Ford Motor Co.”

Financial Times - March 28, 2012
In American Icon, Bryce Hoffman, a veteran reporter with The Detroit News, details “one of the greatest turnarounds in business history”, and, to a lesser extent, the man behind it. It makes for a fascinating read for anyone who follows the car industry; others may find the story engaging too …

AOL Autos - March 26, 2012
AOL Autos Editor-in-Chief David Kiley interviews Bryce about his new book.

WDIV (Detroit, MI) - ClickOn Detroit - March 21, 2012
According to a new book by Detroit News reporter Bryce Hoffman, some members of the Ford family were considering cutting their losses, selling their Class B stock and protecting what was left of their considerable nest egg. Hoffman’s book, “American Icon” tells how Ford heiress and executive Elena Ford bluntly told her cousins in a tense meeting, those not working in the company must trust those who are working inside it. She made it clear, any talk of cutting losses and running, were not to be entertained.

WLBY (Ann Arbor, MI) - The Lucy Ann Lance Show - March 20, 2012
American Icon records the rise, fall, and rise again of Ford Motor Company and how CEO Alan Mulally turned it into the most profitable automobile manufacturer in the world. Bryce Hoffman was granted unprecedented access to Ford’s top executives, secret documents and the Ford family. He tells us that less than four years ago, Ford Motor Company was just months away from running out of cash.

WXYZ (Detroit, MI) - March 20, 2012
Ford Motor posted its largest profit in 13 years for 2011. The $20 billion dollar profit is a dramatic turnaround from the years 2006-2008 when it lost $30 billion. During its darkest days, the company was so broke that it stopped having the plants watered in the world headquarters. That is just one of the company secrets divulged in a new book, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company.
Bryce Hoffman, the book's author, was granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of the automaker.

Huffington Post - March 16, 2012
Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn could be Ford's chairman and CEO today if Bill Ford had agreed to give up his chairman's title in 2006. Former Chrysler CEOs Bob Nardelli and Tom Lasorda tried to form a major alliance with Ford that would have eliminated thousands of jobs in southeast Michigan in 2008. Ford President of Americas Mark Fields nearly came to blows with former CFO Don LeClair in a secret office at Greenfield Village in Dearborn. These are a few of the scenes painted by Detroit News auto industry writer Bryce Hoffman in his new book, "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company."

WNYC (New York, NY) - The Brian Lehrer Show - March 14, 2012
Bryce G. Hoffman , auto reporter for The Detroit News, is now author of American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company. He joins the show to explain how Ford went from the edge of bankruptcy to making a profit without government aid, and what the company's success tells us.

Bloomberg Television - Surveillance Midday - March 13, 2012
Bryce Hoffman, a reporter at the Detroit News, talks about his book "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company" and the outlook for the automaker. He speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday."

WJR 760 (Detroit, MI) - The Frank Beckmann Show - March 13, 2012
Frank Beckmann and Bryce discuss American Icon, Ford's turnaround, Alan Mulally's leadership style and the prospects for the Dearborn automaker going forward.

Fox Business - March 13, 2012
Melissa Francis talks to Bryce about American Icon, the future of Lincoln and Ford's Sync technology.

CBS This Morning - March 13, 2012
Charlie Rose and Gayle King interview Bryce about his new book, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company.

WBUR (Boston, MA) - March 12, 2012
Seven years ago, when journalist Bryce Hoffman started covering the Ford Motor Co. for The Detroit News, he knew he was either witnessing the end of an American icon or its resurrection.

NPR Morning Edition - March 12, 2012
Seven years ago, when journalist Bryce Hoffman started covering the Ford Motor Co. for The Detroit News, he knew he was either witnessing the end of an American icon or its resurrection. Back then, Bill Ford Jr., great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, was still at the helm — but he wouldn't be there much longer. In 2006, Ford brought Alan Mulally, a Boeing executive with no automotive experience, on as chief executive officer. At the time, many in Detroit questioned the hire. But three years later, when Chrysler and General Motors were filing for bankruptcy protection, Mulally helped Ford post its first annual profit since 2005.

Fast Company - March 12, 2012
Alan Mulally is credited with saving Ford Motor Company--and doing it without the taxpayer’s money. But what he really did was save Ford from itself. In the American automobile industry, Ford was notorious for its caustic corporate culture. Executives put their own advancement and the success of their own departments ahead of the bottom line. The company was divided into warring fiefdoms. Different sets of data were used to make different points to different constituencies. And the automaker consistently bet big on homerun products only to let them languish after their initial success.

Wall Street Journal - March 9, 2012
The room looked like it belonged at some NASA facility. The walls were covered with computer printouts, each one a dark mass of data. Every few minutes, someone would enter the room with a new bundle and begin replacing old charts with new ones. When they did, men and women stood before them, eyeing the numbers nervously, pointing here and there with pens and shaking their heads. But this wasn't Houston or Cape Canaveral. It was Conference Room 3B007 in Ford Motor Co.'s redbrick Product Development Center—the secret headquarters of Project Quark.

800ceoread - March 9, 2012
One of my favorite books of 2011 was Once Upon a Car by Bill Vlasic. In it we met the whole cast of characters involved in the auto industry crisis and subsequent government bailouts of Detroit. One of the standouts in Vlasic’s book was Ford CEO Alan Mulally, who turned that company around and whose leadership style I’ve wanted to read more about ever since. Luckily, our friends at Crown Business have published this excellent history of the Ford side of the crisis with Alan Mulally at the helm, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The Detroit News - March 3, 2012
Ford Motor Co. skirted closer to bankruptcy than the public realized, Detroit News automotive reporter Bryce G. Hoffman says in a book to be released this month. Cost-cutting measures at the Dearborn automaker included requiring executive approval to buy a box of paper clips. Plants went unwatered and windows unwashed in a further cost-cutting bid. With Ford Motor Co.'s cooperation, "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company" tells the behind-the-scenes account of the automaker's turnaround.

Automotive News - March 2, 2012
Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co. president of the Americas and a leading candidate to succeed CEO Alan Mulally, nearly had a physical altercation with another top executive in 2006, according to American Icon, a new book on the automaker's turnaround.

AutoBlog - March 2, 2012
While the headline might seem shocking, given the circumstances of the 2009 global economic meltdown, it only makes sense. Ford's dealings with two of its biggest competitors were centered around mutual self-preservation in the form of trying to keep a beleaguered supplier base afloat, according to The Detroit News. According to the report, Ford, Toyota and Honda cooperated to buy from common suppliers in a bid to keep those parts-makers from going under, which would have threatened the automakers' viability. That revelation comes courtesy of a new book, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman.

Bloomberg - March 2, 2012
Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co.’s president of the Americas and a leading candidate to succeed Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, nearly had a physical altercation with another top executive in 2006, according to “American Icon,” a new book on the automaker’s turnaround.