GM Chairman and CEO Wagoner to Speak at SAE 2005 World Congress, Centennial Event to Benefit From All Star Executive Advisory Teams

WARRENDALE, Pa., Aug. 4, 2004 -- Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors Corp., will provide the keynote speech at the SAE 2005 World Congress Banquet on Thursday April 14. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International) will celebrate its 100th Anniversary in 2005, and wants to ensure its hallmark event will be a memorable one.

The SAE 2005 World Congress, April 11-14, is shaping up to be a who's who of automotive executives from Detroit and around the world. General Motors is host company for the centennial year event, the world's largest annual conference and exhibition dedicated to automotive engineering and technology.

"There is nobody more influential in the global auto industry today than Rick Wagoner, and we think it is fitting that Rick give the concluding speech in the SAE centennial year World Congress event," said Dave Amati, Director of Automotive Business for SAE. "We have more high level executives from all over the industry worldwide in supportive and participative roles for this special World Congress, and SAE is delighted to have this level of support from not only GM, but from other global OEMs and supplier companies as well.

The SAE 2005 World Congress industry leadership coalition recently met at the General Motors Vehicle Engineering Center, led by General Chairperson of the 2005 World Congress, Jim Queen, Vice President, North America Engineering for General Motors. This coalition is made up of senior executive leaders from multiple OEMs and top tier supplier companies including Don Runkle of Delphi, Toshiaki Taguchi of Toyota, Kurt Liedtke of Bosch and Burkhard Goeschel of BMW Group. A complete list of group members can be found at http://www.sae.org/congress/news .

Queen has been actively involved in the planning of several SAE World Congress programs, most recently last year, when he worked alongside conference chairperson Phil Martens of Ford Motor Company to build the technical programs and special events in 2004.

Since 1947, the SAE World Congress has been the world's largest meeting and exposition devoted to automotive engineering and product technology. Each year the world of automotive engineering, design, technology, and business descends on Cobo Hall for the SAE World Congress. It remains the primary forum for the best and brightest automotive technical and business talent to meet and exchange ideas with their peers.

For the latest information about the SAE 2004 World Congress, see the web page http://www.sae.org/congress .

SAE is a non-profit engineering and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of mobility technology to better serve humanity. Nearly 84,000 engineers and scientists who are SAE members develop technical information on all forms of self-propelled vehicles, including automobiles, aircraft, aerospace craft, trucks, buses, marine, rail and transit machinery. This information is disseminated through SAE meetings, books, electronic products and databases, technical papers, standards, reports, and professional development programs.