After graduating from Holy Cross, Power spent four years in the Coast Guard before moving on to receive his MBA from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. Power says, “One of my first classes was marketing research, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I graduated in 1959, and ended up at Ford Motor.” Power has been involved in the auto industry ever since. He did market analysis of other companies while working at Marplan, but in 1968 Power decided to form his own business in market analysis.
Power wanted to “do market research in areas the auto industry wasn’t paying attention to.” The American auto companies were uninterested in his services but the Japanese companies “were ‘fanatical’ about understanding the American consumer and signed up for his surveys on quality.” Power made his first contract with Toyota, studying forklift trucks and imported cars.
Fortune reports that it took Power many decades to win the respect of American companies, but “by the early ’90s, every car manufacturer had to subscribe to us.” From there, Power was able to move into other industries, including hotels and banks. Today, J.D. Power and Associates is a part of McGraw Hill Financial and is well-known for its automotive rankings and long-term dependability studies.
Read the full article in Fortune.
This “Holy Cross in the News” item by Sarah Barrett ’18.
'How J.D. Power drove change in auto research'
Fortune| CNN Money
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