Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Business & Economics Automobile Industry

Driven to Succeed

How Frank Hasenfratz Grew Linamar from Guelph to Global

by (author) Rod McQueen & Susan M. Papp

Publisher
Dundurn Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2012
Category
Automobile Industry, Business, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781459707955
    Publish Date
    Oct 2012
    List Price
    $32.99
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781459707979
    Publish Date
    Oct 2012
    List Price
    $9.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

The story of what one daring entrepreneur with dreams and determination can achieve.

Frank Hasenfratz grew up in Hungary learning to dodge bullets and avoid land mines during the Second World War. When the 1956 revolution erupted, he and his army unit joined the insurgents. After the revolution was crushed, he fled to Guelph, Ontario, where he gambled everything on a one-man operation making oil pumps for Ford. The company he founded, Linamar, today has 15,000 employees in eight countries and is the second-largest maker of auto parts in Canada. To create this global empire, Hasenfratz stayed ahead of competitors through hard work, visionary leadership, a cost-conscious regimen, and a skilled workforce.

In 1990, Hasenfratz designated his daughter, Linda, to succeed him as chief executive officer but first put her through a prolonged apprenticeship that took her from the plant floor to head office. Driven to Succeed is the story of what one daring entrepreneur with dreams and determination can achieve.

 

About the authors

ROD MCQUEEN has been a journalist for more than thirty years and has lived and worked professionally in London,Washington, D.C., and Toronto. During that time he has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, and has also done broadcast work. He is the author of eleven books, including Who Killed Confederation Life?, winner of the National Business Book Award, and the bestseller, The Eatons:The Rise and Fall of Canada's Royal Family, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award in history. The Icarus Factor, the unauthorized biography of Edgar Bronfman Jr., was published in 2004. He lives with his wife in Toronto.

Rod McQueen's profile page

Susan M. Papp is a television producer, director and writer, who after working for the CBC for fifteen years founded her own television production company, Postmodern Productions. While at the CBC, she was awarded the prestigious Michener Award for her outstanding investigative work. She has written and published widely on Hungarian immigration to and settlement in North America.

Susan M. Papp's profile page