A daughter of Detroit defies odds, takes car industry into the future

[demmiblue]

Denise Gray arrived at Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant in Livonia, along with nearly three dozen clients and employees, for her business dinner. A well-dressed man she didn't know took her aside and expressed concern about the evening's corporate host, a Korean battery company that recently made leadership changes.

Minutes later, she noticed a horrified look on the customer's face when she introduced herself as the company's president. The man realized Gray was the leadership of LG Chem's Michigan Inc. tech center.

"It's just being a female in a male-dominated industry," Gray said. "People expect the CEO to be male or Korean or I don't know. Just not me."

The little girl raised at Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church on the corner of McDougall and Charlevoix in Detroit, grew up to be one of the world’s most respected electrical engineers who is helping guide the auto industry into the future.

She designs, develops and manufactures lithium-ion battery systems that turn cars into electric and driverless vehicles and provide power for the DVD system playing "Finding Dory" in the backseat of SUVs across America.

Gray's operation is a subsidiary of the $24 billion LG Chem Ltd., headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Her clients include Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Volvo.

“My life is an example of a person who comes from humble beginnings,” Gray said, seated in a pew on a hot July afternoon. It is nearly 90 degrees inside the church. Yet she tells stories, unhurried, for more than an hour on this particular day.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/07/13/denise-gray-lg-chem-michigan-auto-industry/761518002/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[MaryMagdaline]

1. Inspiring story

[demmiblue]

2. We all need inspiration in the Trump era. n/t

[MaryMagdaline]

3. We will!

I was born in Detroit, and my parents used to tell us stories of people (almost always men) whose parents were peasants in Poland, Germany, or Ireland who went to school and became engineers for the auto industry, in an effort to make us study hard. They also told us about the once great middle class African American neighborhoods, filled with people who ran from the Jim Crow South and the "Hillbilly" Detroiters whose families came up from Appalachia. Happy to see a Detroit native do well!