Managers Named for Chrysler Group's Pacifica Design Center

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., March 8 Chrysler Group today announced that Freeman Thomas has been named Head - Pacifica Advance Product Design Center in Carlsbad, Calif., and that Tom Tremont has been appointed Vice President - Advance Product Design Strategy, based in Auburn Hills, Mich. and reporting to Trevor Creed, Senior Vice President - Design.

Freeman Thomas' move from Chrysler Group's Auburn Hills headquarters back to his native California will streamline communications between the corporation's centralized Product Design Operations, its satellite design center in California and creative support suppliers. Thomas, 44, joined the Chrysler Group in 1999 and spent nearly three years heading up Advance Product Design.

After spending 17 years at the Pacifica Advance Product Design Center, Tom Tremont, 53, will move to Auburn Hills to oversee Chrysler Group's Advance Product Design Strategy in the position of Vice President.

Under Tremont's direction, the Pacifica Advance Product Design Center evolved into Chrysler Group's highly lauded design ``skunk works.'' This studio created design trends such as Cab Forward and Passenger Priority and delivered award winning designs such as the Jeep® Willys concept -- which won the Gold Award in the 2001 Industrial Design Excellence Competition sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine and the Industrial Design Society of America.