ROCK STAR OF U.S. CAR DESIGNERS

Ralph Gilles is an automobile designer who grew up in Montreal, Canada after his parents immigrated to New York from Haiti.

Gilles joined Chrysler in 1992. Currently he is Vice President of Jeep & Truck Design at the Chrysler Group. Gilles gained fame for leading the styling of the 2005 Chrysler 300.
Mr. Gilles designed the Chrysler 300 sedan and the Dodge Magnum wagon. Both vehicles helped Chrysler achieve a rare feat in Detroit: the division's operating profit surged to $1.3 billion in the first nine months of 2004 in contrast to a loss of $806 million in the period a year earlier.

Motor Trend Magazine named the Chrysler 300 its Car of the Year for 2005, ahead of 24 competitors including the Porsche 911, Lotus Elise, and BMW 6. Together, Gilles' cars led the way in an amazing turnaround for DaimlerChrysler.

For Ralph Gilles the creative spark appeared early. He was five years old, visiting his Aunt Gisele on Long Island, New York, and, like a lot of kids, drawing what he saw. What differentiated Gilles from the pack at that early age was the fact that his drawings were clear and made sense. "My aunt saw my sketches," Gilles recalls, "and she turned to her husband and said 'Hey Mike! My Nephew can draw! Give him some paper to draw on."

So he began sketching wherever he went, passing dull moments in school with fanciful drawings of cars and other modes of transport. At 15, Gilles wrote a letter to Chrysler head Lee Iacocca, asking what it would take to become a design artist for the giant car company. "And wow, they wrote me back," he said. "I was so impressed. They wrote giving the different names of colleges they hire from, and that was all I needed."

He was a bit disappointed that the letter came from Neal Walling, then vice president of design, instead of the legendary Iacocca himself. "But I felt a certain loyalty to Chrysler because they wrote me, and it changed my life."

He spent a semester in engineering school in Canada, but decided he'd rather draw. "Design is creative," Gilles said. "Engineering is like art work, but they're not the same. As designers, we are in charge of the way a car looks and the emotions you get when you look at it.

So he followed Walling's advice, attending the College of Art and Design in Detroit, which provides about 40 percent of the company's designers, and went to work for Walling after graduating in 1992. It did not take him long to work his way up the ranks, and in 2001 he took over Studio 3, in Auburn Hills, Mich., one of seven Chrysler design studios.