{"id":116722,"date":"2009-12-30T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/12\/30\/gm-hires-ex-atandt-execs-for-lobbying-efforts\/"},"modified":"2009-12-30T17:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T22:30:00","slug":"gm-hires-ex-att-execs-for-lobbying-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/116722","title":{"rendered":"GM hires ex-AT&amp;T execs for lobbying efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/government-legal\/\" rel=\"tag\">Government\/Legal<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/hirings-firings\/\" rel=\"tag\">Hirings\/Firings\/Layoffs<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/gm\/\" rel=\"tag\">GM<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.freep.com\/article\/20091230\/BUSINESS01\/91230015\/1318\/GM-replaces-retiring-chief-lobbyist\"><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"4\" hspace=\"0\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2009\/12\/montford_fergusson_630.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p> While the job may not be popular at all in terms of public opinion, General Motors departing lobbyist Ken Cole has done a pretty good job of making the automaker a sympathetic figure for those inclined to bend rules and bail out poorly-managed behemoths. Sure, GM&#8217;s stature in the public eye is still down there with big tobacco, but Cole managed to keep the automaker&#8217;s relationship with governments around the world on a somewhat even keel. No mean feat when you consider how much divestiture underpins the whole of GM&#8217;s plan forward. <\/p>\n<p> It might even be said that Cole the individual can&#8217;t be replaced by just one person, and Ed Whitacre seemingly agrees. Two of Whitacre&#8217;s former AT&amp;T colleagues have been given offices in the company&#8217;s Detroit Renaissance Center headquarters as replacements for the departing Ken Cole. John Montford has been given a seat beside Whitacre where he will put government affairs under his purview, a role he honed as AT&amp;T&#8217;s Senior Vice President of state legislative affairs. GM&#8217;s new Vice President of Government Relations is Bob Ferguson, who was most recently doing public affairs consulting, but he was all over state regulatory affairs at AT&amp;T before that. We may get to see how well these guys can dance come June, when Whitacre has vowed to pay back nearly $7 billion in government loans. Official press release after the jump.<\/p>\n<p> [Source: General Motors]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/12\/30\/gm-hires-ex-atandt-execs-for-lobbying-efforts\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Continue reading <em>GM hires ex-AT&amp;T execs for lobbying efforts<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/12\/30\/gm-hires-ex-atandt-execs-for-lobbying-efforts\/\">GM hires ex-AT&amp;T execs for lobbying efforts<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\">Autoblog<\/a> on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST.  Please see our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weblogsinc.com\/feed-terms\/\">terms for use of feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;\"><\/h6>\n<p><a href=http:\/\/www.freep.com\/article\/20091230\/BUSINESS01\/91230015\/1318\/GM-replaces-retiring-chief-lobbyist>Read<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/12\/30\/gm-hires-ex-atandt-execs-for-lobbying-efforts\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permanent link to this entry\">Permalink<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/forward\/19298464\/\" title=\"Send this entry to a friend via email\">Email this<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/12\/30\/gm-hires-ex-atandt-execs-for-lobbying-efforts\/#comments\" title=\"View reader comments on this entry\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: Government\/Legal, Hirings\/Firings\/Layoffs, GM While the job may not be popular at all in terms of public opinion, General Motors departing lobbyist Ken Cole has done a pretty good job of making the automaker a sympathetic figure for those inclined to bend rules and bail out poorly-managed behemoths. Sure, GM&#8217;s stature in the public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}