E-mails pour in from worried employees each morning. The two public relations staffs are yelling at each other one day, and apologizing the next. The merger is just a month away, and nobody can agree on what the new company stationary will look like. But the man at the center of the historic integration of Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG seems amazingly unruffled by it all. Sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes you want to cry.
Problems happen, but life goes on.
Chrysler Chairman Robert Eaton and Daimler Chairman Juergen Schrempp put the deal together, but Stallkamp is the catalyst for making sure DaimlerChrysler hits the ground running. Whether he's making one-day round trips to Stuttgart for executive meetings, or fielding questions from workers at an engine plant in Detroit, Stallkamp keeps an even keel. Chosen by Schrempp and Eaton to oversee integration, Stallkamp is under intense scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic as he balances the interests and cultures of two of the world's biggest automakers. Stallkamp said in an interview. Nominating me as the guy to focus on integration was designed to move it along faster rather than slower.