Engineer of the YEAR

It’s worth taking a second to remember what automobiles were like in 1981, the year Jesse A. Ortega joined General Motors, and then compare that to automobiles coming off production lines in 2020.

There were no hybrid or electric vehicles in production.  In fact, leaded gas was still prevalent. And technology we take for granted like touch screens and computer enhanced performance seemed well beyond the horizon. Over his illustrious 40 years at General Motors, Jesse has been among an elite few in our industry who can claim to have imagined, influenced, and advanced the critical processes, production techniques, and technologies that make modern passenger vehicles the fuel efficient, environmentally friendly, engineering marvels we enjoy today.

Born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to a Mexican father and an American-born mother, Mr. Ortega and his siblings came to Stockton, California when he was only six to live with his mother and his maternal grandparents after his parents’ divorce. He credits his mother and grandparents with instilling key beliefs and values that have served him well throughout his life, including an optimism founded on faith, a respect for all people, the value of hard work, the idea that education was and is the key to success, and gratitude for all the blessings that he has experienced.

Mr. Ortega did well in the Stockton school system, and soon discovered that he had an aptitude for math. After high school, he enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley where he earned extra money by working in the office of the Dean of Engineering as the cooperative education assistant director. Soon he was responsible for recruiting and matching students with companies seeking summer interns. He also became involved the Hispanic Engineers and Scientist chapter at UC Berkeley.

Before long, his academic achievements garnered him the opportunity to become a GM Scholar, an honor that came with a scholarship as well as a summer internship in Michigan at GM headquarters. After earning his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Mr. Ortega was named the commencement speaker for the College of Engineering when he graduated in 1981.
He returned to Michigan to take a fulltime job with General Motors right out of college and embarked on what would become about as illustrious a career an engineer can have in the automotive industry.

His first groundbreaking assignment for GM came as the lead product engineer on a reconfigurable touch screen display for the Buick Riviera – an industry first.  Later, Mr. Ortega played a critical role at the Saturn Corporation, a GM subsidiary, where he helped build the revolutionary company from the ground up. 

In his 16 years at Saturn, he supervised teams of hundreds and served in numerous engineering roles, including leading the engineering team that brought GM’s first entry into the industry-dominating compact crossover segment to market, the Saturn V-U-E.  As the Saturn representative to the global team that was developing the next global small car for General Motors, he worked with Pontiac, Chevrolet, Opel, and Vauxhall to develop a product destined to be sold in over 100 countries.

By the time, GM decided to retrench and close down the Saturn division, Mr. Ortega had reached the lofty position of Vehicle Chief. Moving over to a role as Director of GM’s North America Chassis team, he then went on to lead a team of over 100 engineers and managed an annual budget of $3.2 billion.

Mr. Ortega’s lasting contributions to GM have gone far beyond just engineering.  His innovations encompass business processes, organizational structures, and vendor relationships as well. He was responsible for a major reorganization of the way that design, supply chains, modeling, and other manufacturing units collaborate – a complete re-imagination of the way things had been done in the industry for decades.

After stints as Vehicle Chief Engineer for both Full-Size Trucks and Mid-size Passenger Cars, Mr. Ortega was named to his current position as the Architectural Chief Engineer for Battery Electric Vehicles and Innovation / Defense Projects. In this truly global leadership role, he manages a budget of $900 million dollars and leads teams in the U.S., China, Korea and Germany developing next-generation electric vehicle architecture as well as the company’s Share autonomous vehicle.

The significance of this appointment cannot be overstated.  Doug Parks, the Executive Vice President of GM’s Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, put it this way: “Jesse has been charged with leading what truly is the future of not only the company, but the industry.”

Mr. Ortega stays in touch with his Hispanic roots as the Executive Lead for the Warren chapter of the GM Latino Network. The chapter has over 1,000 members and is the largest in General Motors. He is also the Executive Lead for the GMLN recruitment team – which has been very successful in increasing GM’s STEM based Latino population. He is also on the GM recruitment team for Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Most importantly, Mr. Ortega and his wife Barbie are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. They have been blessed with nine children and 12 grandchildren. ­­