Brian Wolfe - The Natural

As you can probably appreciate yourself, coming up with cars and rebuilding your first engine when you were 15 years old, you thought you knew something about engines. When I got that job, I found out I didn't know #$*@-I knew nothing! It was really good. I learned so much, and it was like I couldn't separate work from play. I mean, I couldn't have been happier.

I did that type of work; then became a supervisor in that area, and again, I didn't even think about management. I was nave to all that when I hired in. I became a supervisor, and I remember my boss calling me in the office, Larry Brower, and he said, "You know what? You're going to have to go to work like everyone else and stop having so much fun." So I went through some development programs to learn how engine engineering works and how we get stuff into production.

I worked for Jim Clark in Advanced Engines at a few different points in my career, and he was really a great mentor. We did the V-12 for the Aston Martin. Coming out of there, I had a short stop somewhere else, but then on to Europe as the chief engineer for Inline Gas Engines. That was another dream job. You had a guy who loved engines, and you were kind of in control of those inline gas engines in Product Engineering. That was very enjoyable.

And then I came back to the role I had before this one, which was the director for Global Controls and Calibration. That job really changed in scope significantly from when I took over in 2002 to when I left in 2008. Different accountabilities came in. We were doing the software, powertrain control hardware, and how you calibrate it to emissions and driveability-all those types of things.

5.0&SF: Where were you based in Europe?
BW: I lived in Cologne, Germany, for three years. I worked in Inline Gas, but after 18 months, there was some movement in European management. They asked if I would take a job based in Dutton, England-chief engineer for Powertrain Applications Engineering, which basically did the calibration, the software on all the as-installed bits and pieces: the motor mounts, the cooling systems, air induction, exhaust, and after-treatment for the European products.

I took that job, but I kept my family in Germany because we had just moved and my daughter was getting set in school. I had a few people who worked for me in Germany and a lot of people who worked for me in England, so I went back and forth. I was in England three or four days a week and in Germany one day a week.

5.0&SF: Was the German food was better than the English food?
BW: The German food was awesome. Cologne is a pretty big city and there were a lot of small restaurants. They were all pretty good, and the dollar was strong then. When I left Germany, one euro cost 85; today one euro costs $1.55. So you were really allowed to live a little beyond your normal means, which was kind of nice.

5.0&SF: Has the European experience helped you at Ford Racing?
BW: You know, it definitely has. Particularly going into that second job. I loved the engine stuff and that's where I wanted to stay. But going into that second job, working on all the as-installed stuff and powertrain systems with the vehicle, I really learned an enormous amount about the software, which helped make me ready for my next job back in the U.S. I had the software as well, and the calibration process and driveability interaction.

Of course, in Ford Racing now, the parts that we're doing have to work on fuel-injected cars. We have to have good ties with the Ford Model guys to make sure what we're doing is robust and meets the customer's needs. So it gave me that overall as-installed system perspective as opposed to just worrying about the engine itself. That was a big eye-opener for me.