Big break: Participating in a Chrysler Institute of Engineering program that allowed her to rotate, through seven engineering disciplines

>Just over a year ago, Becky Blanchard took over as director of the Ram truck brand, which puts her in charge of marketing some of Fiat Chrysler's most profitable vehicles.

It was a huge change for the 41-year-old mother of the two because, after all, she is an engineer. She had spent nearly all of her 19 years at FCA, working on the development of a number of different vehicles. Now, she is helping dealers sell them.

The dynamic that's new to me is the commercial business,” she said. “Moving the sales from a small-business perspective has been eye-opening to me.”

Small-business fleet sales rely primarily on leaving the confines of a dealership and visiting customers, Blanchard said. It’s far more about delivering coffee and doughnuts to a morning meeting than it does buying local TV and radio commercials.

“You have to reach those customers in different ways,” she said. “We have our different media channels that reach retail customers, but for commercial customers, you have to go out and meet with them where they work.

“It’s definitely challenging as we look to expand that part of our business overall. For me, it’s been a unique challenge and broadened my perspective on the selling process.”

Blanchard’s father worked in sales at an automotive supplier, giving his daughter an early peek at the industry from the inside. She joined Chrysler after graduating from nearby Oakland University. She worked on her master’s in engineering degree from her alma mater while taking part in a program at the Chrysler Institute of Engineering that allows newly-hired engineers to work in seven different engineering disciplines within the company over a two-year period.

Blanchard said that program jump-started her career.

“You got to see what you like, what you didn’t like,” she said. “You got to see so many areas of the company within a two-year period and really work with so many different people.”

— Larry P. Vellequette