Jane Boon in 1985. Boon, as a high school student in 1985, was selected by Frank Stronach for a sponsorship at GMI (now Kettering University) in Flint, Mich.Supplied
The arrest of Frank Stronach for alleged sexual assaults spanning from the 1980s to last year brought back memories of my time at Magna International in the 1980s.
In 1985, I was among a handful of high-school students interviewed by Mr. Stronach and selected by him for a sponsorship to GMI (now Kettering University) in Flint, Mich. The university is often described as the “West Point” of the auto industry. Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, is a graduate. As a tool and die maker, Mr. Stronach was partial to the university’s approach to engineering education because it emulated the structure of an apprenticeship program. We students would toggle back and forth between Magna and school every three months, in a program designed to produce a crop of engineers with an intimate knowledge of the company and its way of doing business.
Canadian business tycoon Frank Stronach faces new charges related to sexual assault
While attending Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa, I was a talented but introverted nerd. My hobbies were flying and math contests. Only I had grown up in a General Motors family with a father who restored antique cars, so the prospect of going to university in Michigan and starting in the auto industry at the age of 17 spoke to me more loudly than the offers from Waterloo or Royal Military College.
Of the dozen or so Canadian students that Magna sponsored to GMI over the years, I was the only woman, so I stuck out at the program’s end-of-term meetings, which typically involved a visit with our CEO. Frequently, Mr. Stronach would single me out for encouragement, and the attention was thrilling, especially since the guys weren’t getting the same treatment. Once, while visiting headquarters, Mr. Stronach spotted me. I was amazed when he invited me to join him in his office. For half an hour, we discussed my ambitions while he riffed on how they dovetailed with Magna’s plans.
One of the big perks a small number of students enjoyed was being invited to Magna’s annual shareholder meeting. I arrived at Roy Thomson Hall in 1986 wearing the purple knit dress I’d bought for the occasion. At the door, I encountered Mr. Stronach, who was surrounded by the press and his usual coterie of assistants. He waved me over and invited me to the afterparty at Rooney’s, his Toronto restaurant.
Curious about the party, I arrived alone, only to learn that none of my male classmates were there. I lingered awkwardly at the bar, even as I worried about ordering something because I had only turned the legal drinking age a few months prior. I got a glass of wine, did my best to look sophisticated, whatever that meant, and took in the spectacle.
When Mr. Stronach arrived, the tone of the restaurant changed amidst the flash of cameras. People crushed toward him, eager to share his business triumph. In the mid-eighties, at 54, he was a glamorous cross between Lee Iacocca and Donald Trump. As he waded through the room like the politician he would become, he spotted me and invited me to join him for dinner. Of course, I accepted. We were joined by Bill Davis, who was on the Magna board, and other VIPs. Mr. Stronach was nonchalant as he introduced me to his other guests, while I sat mute beside him.
Mid-dinner, things got weird. Mr. Stronach turned to one of his assistants and asked her if the corporate guest house was available that evening. He said he was concerned about the long drive ahead of me (that term, I was writing software for Canada Clutch, a division in Guelph). She said it was available and told me how great the house was. I said the offer was unnecessary. When he repeated the offer, I again declined.
Because I was seated at the owner’s table, the food and service were impeccable: our wine glasses never got below half-full. Feeling very nervous and new to alcohol, I probably drank more than I should have. At the end of the evening, as we were sitting alone together, Mr. Stronach’s driver came to the table to find out what his plans were. At this moment, Mr. Stronach told his driver that I’d had too much to drink. He then said he’d take me to the guest house because I was in no condition to get back to Guelph. The driver would fetch my car. Mr. Stronach told me to give the driver my keys. Obediently, I opened my purse, pulled them out and handed them to the driver, telling him approximately where to find my little red hatchback. Despite my naïveté, it dawned on me as Mr. Stronach led me to his car that he probably expected to have sex with me. I was ambivalent. This high-flying CEO and darling of the business world wanted me, but it was also horrifying.
I spent the roughly 20-minute drive to Magna’s Markham guest house trying to figure out how to extract myself, but nothing came to mind. I had, of course, guessed correctly about Mr. Stronach’s intentions. His concern about my capacity to drive didn’t extend to the bedroom. It was an unsettling, singular encounter.
I spoke about it to a couple of people at the time, and I have since told the story of being propositioned by Mr. Stronach many more, but mostly for laughs. It was absurd that I was even sitting at that table. In telling the tale, I would omit the part where I actually wound up sleeping with my CEO, who was almost three times my age.
What wasn’t clear to me then, but which seems obvious now, is the infrastructure around Mr. Stronach helped sate his appetites. The fact that a teenaged co-op student spent the evening by his side didn’t seem to raise an eyebrow. His assistant could offer me a night at the guest house. My glass – just like everyone else’s – was always filled. The driver, appearing at the end of the evening, ready to find and drive my car because I’d had too much to drink, was a pretty neat trick, too. The 19-year-old me didn’t stand a chance.
We saw similar scenarios with the employees who surrounded predators like Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose. These men found a method of satisfying their desires, and then they fine-tuned their workplaces to optimize results. As an engineer, I must acknowledge how well these systems worked, and for years they were robust and effective. But times change and knowledge grows. What was once tolerable becomes abhorrent.
With the benefit of almost 40 years of hindsight, I now appreciate the ripple effect of that one awkward, awful evening. The encounter soured me on Magna. I didn’t seek out jobs that would have given me the best chance at making a career there. I avoided Mr. Stronach. (Last week, I e-mailed him through his criminal lawyer to offer him the chance to comment on this essay. I never heard back.) I come from a family of car freaks and I once shared their passion, but I went straight to grad school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and left the auto industry behind. Moreover, I stopped practising as an engineer as soon as I could. Is it really a surprise that I now write fiction where the central themes are trust, power and consent?
The evening was murky and lopsided. At the time, I thought it was consensual. But if it wasn’t rape, it certainly wasn’t right.
Jane Boon, PhD, is a writer who lives in New York.