Jim Owens Joined Caterpillar In 1972

After nearly 38 years with Caterpillar Inc., Jim Owens, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the last six years, says that the company is poised for tremendous income growth based on their stock value and their expanded capacity capability world wide, saying they are seeing positive signs after the largest recession since the Great Depression. Owens, speaking from his office in their world headquarters in Peoria, IL, joined Caterpillar Inc. in 1972 as Corporate Economist. ''My goal was to leave a much better Caterpillar than when I came in. That would be a legacy.''

Owens came to Caterpillar in 1972 from North Carolina, a Ph.D. in economics in hand with experience as a teacher. He got an education himself in how economics play a large role in guiding a ship the size of Caterpillar.

He also got a good lesson a decade later.

In the early 1980s, when Caterpillar started struggling financially under the weight of a recession, Owens was appointed to head a group that would assess every facet of the company operations. ''It was perhaps the most important job I had at Caterpillar,'' he said.

It was also one of the toughest because it was Owens and his group that made recommendations in the 1980s that cost the company a lot of jobs. ''We made some unpopular recommendations,'' he said, including outsourcing to suppliers those functions and parts they could do less expensively than Caterpillar could itself. ''They were unpopular, but those decisions helped right the ship.''

He was sent to China the first time in 1983 and was ''on hand to see something unprecedented in economic history unfold'' as that country began to emerge.

He called his subsequent job running the Caterpillar subsidiary Solar Turbine, based in San Diego, one of the best jobs in the company. Owens later was chief financial officer as he climbed the ladder to the seventh floor at 100 SW Adams St., Caterpillar headquarters.

He believes one reason he got to that level was the way he treated every rung of that ladder. ''I truly looked at every job I had here as an opportunity to learn something to take with me to the next job. A great tip for young people is to take every job and every boss you have and learn something from them. Expand your experiences and build skill sets.''

I feel good about the progress we've made under my leadership over the last seven years. This was a job I feel I was well prepared for, but, of course, sometimes you've just got to play with the cards you're dealt.

''It was a fairly tumultuous ride in terms of the global economy and the kind of opportunities it presented. I think you have to judge my performance in light of that. If you compare today with 2003, are we better prepared to compete in the global market? I think the answer is clearly yes. Did we get everything done I hoped we'd get done? No. We met or exceeded some goals and fell short on others, but we're still working on those,'' he said.

With just days left in his tenure as CEO - he will be chairman until October - Owens said he is looking forward to retirement but has no plans of walking away from the things that drive him.

He will spend more time with family, including his wife Katie, but he also plans to stay in Peoria and ''stay engaged with the business community'' while continuing to serve on boards of companies and not-for-profit agencies.

''I'll stay busy. I wouldn't want it any other way.''