Luncheon/Speakers

Wednesday, January 27
Room 145 AB

Speaker
Jean Jennings
President
Automobile Magazine

Jean Jennings, 54, has been writing about cars and the car business for the past twenty-seven years. Her automotive background began at the age of eighteen when she bought a used car, painted it yellow, installed a toplight and a meter, and joined the Yellow Cab Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as an owner/operator. Five years later, Jennings went to Chrysler’s test track where she worked as a test driver, welder, and mechanic in the impact lab. In 1980, she was hired as a writer at Car and Driver magazine when she was laid off her Chrysler job, and in 1985 she left to establish Automobile Magazine with David E. Davis, Jr., as its first executive editor. In only four and a half years, Automobile Magazine surpassed 500,000 circulation, the first truly successful challenger to the “Big Three” car magazines. She became Editor-in-Chief January 1, 2000, and President of Automobile Magazine September 6, 2006.

Jennings’s journalistic career has taken her to the racetrack as a driver, to China on motorcycles, to Detroit’s North American International Auto Show as a model, to Madagascar for the Camel Trophy, across the Alps with Sir Stirling Moss, and to the Baja 1000 with a Russian racing team. She covered the 1992 Los Angeles riots in a Dodge Viper. She is the editor of a hardcover anthology of automotive literature, "Road Trips, Head Trips, and Other Car-Crazed Writings." Jennings has won awards for her feature writing, for her car reviews, and for her monthly Automobile Magazine column “Vile Gossip.” She was the recipient of the 2007 Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism.

Jennings was the subject of a Susan Orlean profile in the New Yorker, and has appeared on numerous television news shows, has been on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and was Good Morning America’s automotive correspondent from 1994 to 2000.

She is currently a regular on-air contributor to Fox’s Fox and Friends; CNBC’s Closing Bell, Squawk Box, Behind the Wheel, and Power Lunch; MSNBC; CBS This Morning and Evening News; and CNN’s American Morning and Headline News.

Jennings lives in the Michigan countryside with her husband Tim and the entire food chain.

Thursday, January 28 NEW Joint luncheon with EDTA
Room 146 ABC

Featured Speaker:
Mike Jackson
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
AutoNation, Inc.

Mike Jackson is AutoNation's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He has served as CEO and as a Director of the Board since September 1999 and Chairman of the Board since January 1, 2003. Previously, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, a North American operating unit of DaimlerChrysler AG, a multinational automotive manufacturing company. At Mercedes-Benz, he led a renaissance in the luxury vehicle brand's sales and marketing efforts. He also has been a dealer, operating as managing partner of Euro Motorcars of Bethesda, Md. from March 1979 to July 1990. The group owned and operated eleven automotive dealership franchises. Most recently named again in 2007, Mr. Jackson is a five-time member of the Automotive News "All-Star Team" of automotive executives and a four-time member of Advertising Age's "Marketing 100." In 2003, Mr. Jackson was named "Industry Leader Of the Year", by the Automotive Hall of Fame. Mr. Jackson is currently the Chair of the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Jackson is one of the nation's leading speakers on energy. He has spoken recently to Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, William J. Clinton School of Public Policy, Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations and the North American International Powertrain Conference.

All tickets are $40/each (tables of 10 available for $400). Government employees may purchase discounted tickets at $15/each and students who can provide a valid student ID can order 1 lunch ticket at no cost.