NEW YORK — When Jeffrey R. Immelt was growing up in Finneytown as the son of a GE Aircraft Engines manager, the top job at General Electric Co. wasn't a topic of dinner-time conversation.

        “My dad never talked about who the CEO of GE was. He talked about who his boss was,” said Mr. Immelt, who Friday succeeded the legendary Jack Welch as chairman and CEO of one of the world's largest and most powerful corporations.

        It's a lesson that Mr. Immelt, 45, a 1974 graduate of Finneytown High School, still carries with him.

JEFFREY R. IMMELT

• Born: Feb. 19, 1956, in Cincinnati.     • Background: Father, Joseph, is a retired GE Aircraft Engines purchasing manager. His mother, Bonnie, was a schoolteacher. Older brother, Stephen, is a Baltimore lawyer.     • Family: He and wife, Andrea, met while both worked at GE Plastics. They have a daughter.     • Education: 1974 graduate of Finneytown High School, where he played football, basketball and baseball. A 1978 graduate of Dartmouth College with a degree in applied math and economics. Has an MBA from Harvard University (1982).     • Career: After various assignments at GE Plastics, Mr. Immelt was named vice president of consumer services at GE Appliances in 1989. He was named president of GE Medical Systems in 1997.     • Hobbies: Golf. Shot an 81 last month during a round at Ivy Hills Country Club in Newtown.

        “I always use that talking with employees to reinforce how important their role is,” he says. “Day in and day out, it's the front-line managers that are GE to the people who work for them.”

        As the hand-picked successor to Mr. Welch, one of the most influential corporate leaders of the last century, Mr. Immelt's words and actions will be closely watched not only by GE employees, but also by investors, customers and competitors.

        The task of succeeding a business icon like Mr. Welch as the ninth chairman of an industrial and financial powerhouse like GE might seem daunting to some, but not to Mr. Immelt.

        “I don't think my job is to follow Jack. My job is to lead GE,” Mr. Immelt said during an interview last week in his 53rd-story office overlooking Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

        “Comparisons to Jack are inevitable, but they'll take care of themselves if you perform. If you lead the company forward, that all works out over time.”

        Munching on pretzels near the end of a day of interviews with the nation's financial media, Mr. Immelt came across as a man comfortable in his new role.

        “It's a great company,” he says. “It's a company that's been a big part of my life. I love the company completely, and I think I have the best job on Earth.”

        Monday, the Immelt era at GE will formally begin when he conducts a televised meeting with the company's 313,000 worldwide employees.

        Those who know him — friends and foes alike — say Mr. Immelt is a smart, personable executive who has all the attributes to lead GE well into the 21st century.

        “He is a great guy,” said Dr. Gerry Kortekamp, a Cincinnati physician and Mr. Immelt's roommate at Dartmouth College. “He's always been very caring. Very upbeat. Always motivated and hard-working.”

        Ed Fire, president of the International Union of Electric Workers-CWA, which represents 40,000 GE workers and retirees, said he came away from his first meeting several months ago with Mr. Immelt impressed.

        “He's a bright guy, and he obviously knows the company,” Mr. Fire said.
Finneytown upbringing

       Mr. Immelt (pronounced IM-mult) said he developed his self-confidence and competitive spirit growing up in Finneytown.

        “My parents from the very earliest age said you can do whatever you put your mind to. I always had an environment around me that was never negative, that was always stretch,” he said, slipping into GE-speak that refers to dreaming big dreams.

        Mr. Immelt's parents, Joseph, a retired GEAE purchasing manager, and Bonnie, a former teacher, now live in West Chester. They declined to be interviewed, but Mrs. Immelt noted: “Jeff was a great kid. Very competitive, and we're terribly proud of him.”

        His older brother, Stephen, is a lawyer in Baltimore.

        “I was a classic younger brother,” Mr. Immelt said. “I always wanted to do everything my older brother did and wanted to compete with him.”

        His teachers recall Mr. Immelt as an outgoing student who had his own mind and wasn't afraid to express his ideas.

        “He was one of the best students I ever had. He was a nice young fellow with a good sense of humor,” said Jim Powell, longtime Finneytown High math teacher who was inducted into the school's hall of fame with Mr. Immelt two years ago.

        Mr. Immelt hasn't forgotten his old school. He's been a frequent contributor to the Finneytown Schools Education Foundation, said Rick Payne, foundation president.

        “He started that a long time before he got in his current job,” Mr. Payne said.
       

One-liners in the huddle

        Mr. Immelt, a three-sport athlete at Finneytown, went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he played offensive tackle on the football team.

        One of the new friends he met was Gerry Kortekamp.

        “I was from Western Hills. He was from Finneytown. We had similar backgrounds. Both our moms were teachers. I was a swimmer and he was a football player. We had a lot in common,” Dr. Kortekamp says today.

        “He always had a great sense of humor. He was a gregarious guy and always loved to have fun,” says Dr. Kortekamp, who got together last month with Mr. Immelt to play golf at Ivy Hills Country Club in Newtown.

        The two used to slip away from the Phi Delta Alpha fraternity house, where they lived, to study at Aquinas House, affiliated with the Catholic Church.

        “We'd study, play pingpong and eat their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Dr. Kortekamp says. “Jeff wasn't Catholic, but he liked the sandwiches.”

        Mr. Immelt's humor and sense of timing are what former Dartmouth quarterback Buddy Teevens, now an assistant coach at the University of Florida, remembers.

        “He always had a knack when things were tense to crack a one-liner in the huddle that would relax everybody,” Mr. Teevens said.

        As an upperclassman, Mr. Teevens said, Mr. Immelt went out of his way to get to know the underclassmen on the team.

        “You won't find anybody on the team who won't have a good thing to say about Jeff,” Mr. Teevens said.
       

Rise to the top

        Although his father worked 38 years for GEAE, Mr. Immelt said he never had any grand plan to work for GE or have a business career while in college.

        “I probably never read the Wall Street Journal until I was 24 years old,” he said. “I was reading Sports Illustrated, stuff like that.”

        After graduating from Dartmouth in 1978 with a degree in applied mathematics and economics, Mr. Immelt worked a couple of years for Procter & Gamble Co. in brand management on its Duncan Hines and Pringles products.

        Mr. Immelt said he enjoyed his time at P&G but wanted to go to Harvard to get his MBA.

        “P&G gave me a great foundation. Great business discipline, and I met a lot of terrific people,” he said.

        He worked on a consulting project for GE while at Harvard. Despite GE's reputation for outstanding management practices, Mr. Immelt said: “I figured I'd stay five years and figure out where I really wanted to go.”

        He joined GE Plastics, where Mr. Welch also started. He was named vice president of consumer service at GE Appliances in 1989. Rising through GE's ranks, he was named president of GE Medical Systems in Milwaukee in 1997.

        Mr. Immelt's five-year plan turned into 19.

        “It was a gas,” he said. “I loved what I did. I had great bosses in a series of great jobs. That's what happens, you put your nose down, learn a lot, like what you do and success takes care of itself.”

        Mr. Immelt's rise to the top of the GE corporate ladder culminated last November when he was chosen over two other finalists — W. James McNerney, former president of GEAE, and Robert Nardelli, former president of GE Power Systems, to succeed Mr. Welch.

        “Jeff Immelt is a natural leader and ideally suited to lead GE for many years,” Mr. Welch said when announcing his successor.

        Mr. McNerney, who's since moved to chairman of 3M Corp., and Mr. Nardelli, who's moved to head Home Depot Corp., remain friends with Mr. Immelt.

        While GE's six-year search for Mr. Welch's successor was intensely watched on Wall Street and the media, Mr. Immelt said, “Inside the company, it wasn't a big political thing. It was: Do your job, and things will happen.”
       

A man with "edge'

        At 6-foot-4 with a shock of gray-white hair, Mr. Immelt presents a sharp physical contrast with the 5-foot-8, bald Mr. Welch.

        Their personal styles are also strikingly different.

        “Welch is a very assertive and aggressive person,” Mr. Fire said. “Immelt comes across with a little more of a Joe Cool image. He's a quieter guy. But he's got obviously good credentials in terms of his education and experience.”

        Those who know both men say the differences are more style than substance. Both love to compete, and both are longtime GE employees. Mr. Welch joined GE in the 1960 after receiving a Ph.D. in chemical engineering; Mr. Immelt joined GE in 1982 after getting his MBA.

        Early in his 20-year reign as GE chairman, Mr. Welch was tagged with the moniker “Neutron Jack.” That stemmed from the company's elimination of more than 100,000 jobs by closing plants and shedding units to fulfill Mr. Welch's dictum that the company should be in businesses where it is a market leader.

        Those who know Mr. Immelt say he also can be demanding.

        “He has what Welch calls "edge,'” said Noel Tichy, professor at the University of Michigan Business School and a longtime consultant to GE. “He can make the tough calls. There is no question in my mind Jeff can make the big acquisitions, make divestitures. He can fire people when he has to.”

        Union leader Mr. Fire said he learned in his first meeting with Mr. Immelt that on some issues, little will change. He mentioned to Mr. Immelt the IUE's interest in working out an agreement on organizing GE's nonunion plants, a move Mr. Welch stoutly rejected.

        “Immelt's comment to me was: "I have to tell you the apple didn't fall far from the tree on that one,' ” Mr. Fire said.
"A customer guy'

        Mr. Immelt said his immediate plans are to push the initiatives launched by Mr. Welch, including:

        • Globalization: Pushing GE's dozen major businesses not only to sell but also to source and to develop products overseas.

        • Six Sigma efficiencies: Six Sigma is the data collection method that Mr. Welch borrowed from AlliedSignal Corp. to push GE's businesses to near perfection.

        • Digitalization: GE's goal is to turn all its operations into online, e-business enterprises.

        There will be time later to launch his own initiatives at GE.

        “I have my own style that's different from Jack's,” he said. “I'm going to take all (his) initiatives and take them closer to the customer, driving more customer intimacy. I'll probably take the initiatives and drive more globalization. . . . It's not about getting a stone tablet on Day One and saying "Everything the old guy did was crap, and here's the new way.' ”

        Len Vickers, a New York marketing executive and Mr. Immelt's first boss at GE, says: “He was star leadership material from Day One. That isn't a rationalization. That's a matter of record.”

        Fresh out of Harvard, Mr. Immelt was a key member of a team under Mr. Vickers that developed the plan for how GE's interwined industrial businesses would market themselves.

        “What separates the men from the boys, in my view, are imagination and willpower. I think he has them both,” Mr. Vickers said.

        “He always used the word "opportunity,' which is a marketing man's word and a word I love,” he said.

        “He's a customer guy,” Mr. Vickers said. “Staying close to customers isn't just an emotional, nice thing to do. It's where you get a lot of your learning. It's where you get a sense of opportunity.

        “He's going to constantly challenge the (GE) businesses, in my view, to redefine themselves, to make themselves part of a bigger market, to see more. . . . You can't sell more until you see more.”
       

The next big hit

        In a new version of his study of Mr. Welch's management style, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will, Mr. Tichy outlines a number of the challenges Mr. Immelt will face succeeding Mr. Welch.

        The list includes:

        • Re-evaluating GE's portfolio of businesses to make sure each is first or second in its industry.

        • Increasing diversity within GE's senior management.

        • Finding the next platform — such as e-business and Six Sigma — to fuel GE's continued growth.

        “The big challenge will be to find the next big hit,” Mr. Tichy said. “Welch kept finding platforms for growth. But I think he's got a couple years to sort of wrestle those through.”

        Mr. Immelt's friends don't doubt he's up for the task.

        “Jeff likes challenges, so this is the perfect challenge for him,” Dr. Kortekamp said.

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