James R. Hall


Peacefully, at home, surrounded by his family, James Ralph Hall, 86, passed away Thursday night. Mr. Hall had been hospitalized for back surgery. He developed post-surgical complications over the past month that led to his death.


Mr. Hall was devoted to his family, which meant so much to him. He will always be remembered as a loving husband, inspirational father, beloved grandfather, respected and empathetic executive, superb engineer, esteemed mentor, and dear friend to so many people. As everyone who was fortunate enough to have met him will attest, he had not only a unique warmth and larger-than-life personality, but a genuine interest in everyone he met and a singularly rare ability to connect deeply with people of every background. He forged profoundly meaningful connections throughout his life with everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him.



Mr. Hall was President of AP Parts Manufacturing Company from 1987 until his retirement in 1996. He was responsible for all of AP's manufacturing, engineering, and original equipment market sales to automotive manufacturers. Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, AP Parts was a technologically innovative original equipment supplier to Detroit's "Big Three" car manufacturers (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) and all major domestic heavy truck producers. At AP, Mr. Hall led continuous growth of AP's original equipment manufacturing business and, over a more than thirty-year career with the company, was instrumental in improving and expanding the company's operations. He directly oversaw the company's subsidiaries in Mexico, Spain, and Canada, and led the company in establishing foreign partnerships in Japan, Sweden, Germany, Korea, and Argentina. He also was among AP's key management team members who shepherded the company through four leveraged buyouts during the 1980s.



Mr. Hall parlayed his teenage love of building custom "hot rods" during his Elgin Academy days into a distinguished automotive engineering and executive career. Mr. Hall was born on July 1, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois to the late Robert Wade Hall and Helen Elaine (Shay) Hall. He attended a rural one-room schoolhouse and, later, the Elgin Academy. As a 15-year-old high school student, having saved money from various jobs, he purchased his first car from a junkyard, a 1933 Ford five-window coupe. He worked tirelessly that night into the early morning hours with an arc welder he had ordered through the mail, "chopping" the top of the car (hot rod style) in the family barn with chicken coops on either side of him (and with the chickens not sleeping either, he recounted). In the morning he left for school "looking like a raccoon" because of an ultraviolet radiation sunburn beyond his welding goggles. The large V-8 engine Mr. Hall promptly swapped into his '33 Ford enabled him to lay down circles of burnt rubber in the large intersection in front of the Elgin Academy. To his misfortune, his mother happened to witness this feat with horror from her window at the Admissions Office at the Academy, where she worked; that evening at home, he recalled, she gave him a gentle lecture about "what was expected of him coming from their family." At the Elgin Academy, Mr. Hall was on the varsity football, swimming, and tennis teams, was Homecoming King and Valedictorian, and graduated with the Ora L. Pelton III scholar-athlete award given each year to the Academy's outstanding male graduate. He received his mechanical engineering degree from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) in 1961, where he was elected to the mechanical engineering honor society Pi Tau Sigma and was a member of Alpha Gamma Upsilon/Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji). He was a Senior Research Engineer for Cadillac in Detroit where, at age 26, he became the youngest person ever to earn the company's Seventh Level seniority status (Silver Badge). The company that became AP Parts hired Mr. Hall as an engineer in 1964 to develop its original equipment manufacturing business and promoted him to Chief Engineer in 1969, while he was still in his early 30s. Over his more than three decades at AP, he made so many lifelong friends, both within AP and among the many customers with whom he worked. His continued involvement with the AP "Old Timers Club" brought him much enjoyment.



Mr. Hall was active in many automotive industry and manufacturing associations, including serving as Chairman of the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association and Director of the Automotive Industry Action Group. He held six patents and led in the development of numerous innovative automotive products, including the first emission control system to meet the 1975 Clean Air Act standards, the first tubular frame on a domestic production vehicle, and the Pontiac GTO "Tiger Button" vacuum-operated exhaust system which produced the GTO's distinctively throaty rumble, when activated by a dashboard button. Mr. Hall's children enjoyed their father's personal LP records in the family collection—invariably, it seemed, 1960s recordings of exotic sports car exhaust sounds recorded on a car-by-car and gear-by-gear basis at famous races in separate high-fidelity tracks—and how they contrasted with the balance of the family's record collection. Mr. Hall was able to make esoteric subjects such as exhaust system harmonics, tuning, and noise dampening absolutely captivating to anyone. His LP records doubtless also brought back memories to Mr. Hall of his early Sixties Detroit days and some of his favorite sports cars from that period, his Jaguar XK120 convertible and Jaguar XK150 coupe. He recalled overhauling the XK120's brakes by hand in a cornfield once (when they failed during a drive home to Illinois), and also personally replacing the XK150's factory engine with a huge Corvette V-8 engine (enabling him, as he put it, to "bury" the Jaguar's 140 MPH factory speedometer, which his family assumes took place on one of the many racetracks he frequented as a young sports-car-buff engineer and not on Woodward Avenue in Detroit).



In his retirement, Mr. Hall did some management consulting work on strategic planning issues for clients interested in the automotive original equipment manufacturing market in North America. His consulting clients, which included the Israel-based Plasma Laser Technologies, gave him the continued enjoyment of strategizing about cutting-edge engineering and manufacturing technologies. He also was honored to serve as a Trustee for his alma mater, now known as Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute).



Mr. Hall and his beloved wife Judy moved from the Toledo area to Traverse City approximately 20 years ago. Always highly involved in his community, Mr. Hall was a tireless volunteer and gave freely of his time including, most recently, by individually mentoring countless prospective engineering students for the Manufacturing Technology Academy (for which he won MTA's Distinguished Leadership Award), performing extensive historical restoration work at the Peter Dougherty House, and planting memorial trees throughout the Old Mission Peninsula for the Old Mission Peninsula Historical Society. He also was a member of the Old Mission Congregational Church in Traverse City.



He had been an avid boater for many years, a Senior Navigator in the United States Power Squadrons (where he had taught Celestial Navigation), and a longtime member of the Toledo Yacht Club. The thirty years of good times he spent on his Hatteras, Nerissa III, with his family and friends were among his most cherished memories. His children will never forget the fun they had on all their weekend trips and family vacations island-hopping throughout the Great Lakes on board Nerissa III with their Dad at the helm, often exclaiming "It doesn't get any better than this." Bob Seger eight-track tapes were in heavy rotation on Nerissa III, given Mr. Hall's memories of having seen Mr. Seger perform live many times in downtown Detroit venues in the early Sixties. Mr. Hall also was an avid skier from a young age and, for almost two decades, never once missed his annual ski trip with his son.



Mr. Hall was predeceased by his parents and his sister, Carolyn Hunt. He is survived by his dearly loved wife of 57 years, Judy, his daughter Emily, his son Bob (Jennifer), and his grandchildren Will and Torie. Although "you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people's lives," as Fitzgerald wrote, we hope Mr. Hall knew what an immense space he occupied in the lives of so very many other people.


Funeral arrangements will be private. Interment of Mr. Hall's ashes will take place in the family plot in Acacia Park Cemetery in Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the Old Mission Congregational Church, the Old Mission Peninsula Historical Society, the Peter Dougherty Society, or any charity of your choice.