GE Audio & Video: Podcasts, Stream GE, On Demand
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[My name is Dave Ekedahl, and I retired from GE Capital in 1995 after working]
[there for 38 years. And I worked primarily most of my career in the consumer financing]
[business and ended up being the chairman of GE Capital's global consumer financing]
[business for the last 5 or 6 years I was there. ]
[Well, I think it was 1989; I was the chairman of the American Financial Services Association,]
[which was a group of non-bank banks, an organization that represented them]
[in Washington, and I had worked with AFSA in a number of different areas and]
[ended up being the chairman for a couple of years. ]
[The time that I had the opportunity to meet President Reagan had to do with that. We had]
[a convention in San Francisco that year. So we thought about who we might get for a ]
[keynote speaker, and the thought of President Reagan came to mind, certainly because]
[he was located out there, and he had just recently left the Presidency. And he had had a ]
[connection with the forerunner of AFSA years back, and it was a very favorable connection]
[so there seemed to be good vibes, so we went and asked him, asked his agent. ]
[And he asked President Reagan, and Reagan said that he would love to do it. ]
[Actually, it was the first speech he gave after he left the Presidency. ]
[There was probably a thousand people in the audience; obviously he was a very good]
[draw in many ways but especially in the West Coast, California, San Francisco. ]
[But I had an opportunity to spend time with the President in the Green Room prior to ]
[introducing him; that was very, very pleasant, because he was very friendly, ]
[especially when he found out that I was working for GE. He just sort of lit up because]
[of his previous experience with GE, and he started in telling stories. ]
[And it was just the two of us in the room. There wasn't anybody else in the room, just]
[the two of us, and we were probably there for a half hour or 45 minutes, and he just]
[loved to tell stories about GE, about various people that he knew there--some of whom]
[he liked a lot and others that he didn't care too much for, but he had very favorable ]
[things to say about GE. He talked about Ralph Cordiner, who was the chairman]
[back when Reagan was working for GE, and how his steely blue eyes--]
[He talked about how every time he looked at him he got a little scared because of]
[these eyes that were looking at him from Cordiner. So he was remembering]
[all the time that he had spent with Cordiner during that time. And he had others that he]
[wasn't quite so favorable about, but he sort of did it with a smile and a bit of a laugh]
[of the good times. The other thing he mentioned--and he mentioned this]
[several times--was the lessons he learned during that time in terms of business lessons]
[and speaking lessons and ability to get along with people.]
[He said he thought that that he really rounded him out in his experience]
[because of the travels and all the different people that he met through GE.]
[So it was a very important part of his life and his training, as far as he said, and]
[he really appreciated how he was treated and the whole experience]
