Last fall -- on Thursday, Oct. 6, to be exact -- Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne led 200 of his company's top executives on a half-day expedition to downtown Detroit, to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan headquarters.
They packed food boxes for schoolkids.
They saw the 2-1-1 human services call center in action.
They heard about United Way's crusade to boost graduation rates past 80% at high schools with the region's worst dropout rates.
Any such corporate commitment of top staff on a workday is unusual, but this was a really large group, and even more extraordinary, it was CHRYSLER -- whose top executives had largely disappeared from local civic and philanthropic activity for several years during its financial collapse, bailout, bankruptcy and struggle for survival.
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