SAAB in the Rearview Mirror

This week’s guest is long term Saab employee John Libbos. John was with Saab from 1987 to 2012. His many jobs included several Technical Services positions and later as Project Manager for the 9-5 and 9-4X. He also spent several years working in Sweden in the late 90’s as the Aftersales Project leader for the Saab 9-5 being fully immersed in Swedish language and culture. John was stationed in most all locations of Saab headquarters including the infamous GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Post Saab he worked as a contractor for Maserati at Road Atlanta and as a training instructor traveling all over the USA and Canada. Please enjoy.

This week’s guest is former Saab Parts Director Doug Williams. Doug worked in the Norcross, GA headquarters in the late 90’s through his early retirement in 2001. During his tenure the parts division moved over 100 million in parts and accessories per year with the help of a dedicated staff. Innovative ideas were put into place such as overnight dedicated delivery to dealers of parts and Saab badged delivery trucks traveling all over the Northeastern USA. My favorite was the view of a Gripen fighter jet afterburner on the back doors of the trucks. Doug also talks about his 25 years with Jaguar prior to joining Saab and many of the celebrities he met in his career.

I am joined in this week’s episode by long time Saab employee Gary Dagesse. Gary has had numerous field and management positions at Saab. He started in the early 90’s and stayed up until almost the very end of the Spyker years in 2011. He also worked for Ford, Porsche, Jaguar/Land Rover and Nissan and talks about his experiences in the non-Saab world. He also just recently completed a lifelong bucket list goal by visiting all 30 baseball stadiums ending up in Toronto at the Rogers Center, formerly the Skydome where his wife arranged a nice surprise for his birthday.

One of my many ex-bosses, my mentor, my sometimes life coach and most of all my friend, Mike Raflowitz joins me on the Podcast. Mike had a long and varied career at Saab ranging from Field Representative to operating Saab of Japan (thus the Saab Japanese intro). Mike "Raf" is fun to talk to and is a great story teller and he has some great ones from almost running over a group of astronomers in a Saab to illegally crossing the Finnish border into Russia! Enjoy.

This episode's guest is former Saab Training Department member Dave Kapitulik.  "Kap" details his road to being an educator and training instructor/course designer at Saab Automobiles.  Dave's long career started in Technical Services and to educating Saab Technicians from all over the USA's east coast. Dave talks about his numerous trips to Sweden, the great co-workers he had and his post Saab career working for the Connecticut Technical School system.

Join me for our first episode featuring ex-Saab Field Representatives John Ritter and John Sokol. We discuss how each became interested in the automotive business, their long careers at Saab, their favorite meetings, brushes with celebrity, life after Saab and much more.