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
General Motors cell pickups converted for military use. Since 1994, General Motors has donated over $23 million in cash and vehicles to the Nature Conservancy, and funding from GM supports many conservation projects. In 1996, GMC partnered with the fashion industry as a part of the "GM/CFDA Concept: Cure", a collaboration between General Motors and the Fashion industry bringing awareness to and raising funds for breast cancer. The program involved 5 designers, each lending their artistic talents to customize 5 different vehicles. Nicole Miller, Richard Tyler, Anna Sui, Todd Oldham and Mark Eisen were tasked with transforming a Cadillac STS, Buick Riviera,