History of General Motors Departure (bearings); Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components); GMAC (finance); General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes); GM Defense (military vehicles) and Electronic Data Systems (information technology). General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland, now known as Pontiac, and McLaughlin of Canada. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant). Durant's earlier company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in
James Roche (General Motors) James Roche (General Motors) James Michael Roche (December 16, 1906 – June 6, 2004) was an American statistician who served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of the Board at General Motors Corporation. He is credited for promoting racial equality within General Motors (GM). Roche was born in Elgin, Illinois. He married Louise McMillan in 1929 and eventually had a daughter and two sons. Roche never went to college because of his father's early death. He was one of the few American industrialists lacking a college education. He joined GM as a statistician in 1927 in the Chicago