Rick Spina

GM Executive Chief Engineer, Crossovers And SUVs

- Gary Witzenburg

Because he grew up in New Jersey and earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton and an MBA at Harvard, Rick Spina jokingly calls himself an “East Coast Ivy League snob.” He summered with his family in the New York Adirondacks, “playing with dirt bikes and sailboats,” and he got into cars as an early teenager after trading a cord of firewood for a broken-down 1954 Chevrolet. “My parents desperately hoped that I would not get it running,” he says with a chuckle, “but it took me just about a month to get it running. And I’ve been a car guy ever since.”

Spina worked briefly at a few other places before landing at General Motors in 1984, when he was in his early 20s. He has worked his way through increasing levels of responsibility, including director of Truck Chassis Systems, vehicle line executive for Full-Size Trucks, and vice president of GMNA Quality. Currently, he is the executive chief engineer over all GM crossovers. Yet he still loves old cars, and his “best” hobby is working on his 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88 convertible. We chatted with him by phone soon after testdriving Chevrolet’s all-new 2019 Blazer.

Truck Trend: We’ve called the Blazer RS the “Camaro of Crossovers” for its styling and impressive twisty road handling.