Colleagues remember Jack
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To his colleagues, Jack Teahen was a teacher, an example, a storyteller, a numbers fanatic and a walking history book filled with auto industry lore. Here's how some fellow workers remembered him last week.
"The fact that he could be a snarling editor and such a nice guy wasn't his only contradiction. Jack was fanatical about numbers. ... Yet Jack was probably the finest pure writer in the long history of this newspaper. He wrote simply and clearly and beautifully."
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"No one knew car pricing better than Jack. When GM insiders had a question about pricing, they wouldn't call their finance guys; they'd call Jack."
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"He knew how car dealers survived during World War II when there were no new cars to sell for five years. And he knew every deal, spiff and shenanigan the factories tried with the dealers and the dealers tried with customers."
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"He extremely disliked: fruit, vegetables, the Big Ten, icy roads, trucks (as in pickups and SUVs) and computers -- those 'confounded contraptions.' He valued faith, loyalty, accuracy, manners and his profession."
To see the full text of colleagues' reminiscences of Jack, along with video features, go to autonews.com/teahen.
