By Katie Merx and Bill Koenig
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Trustees of the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association for retired United Auto Workers union- represented employees of General Motors Corp. have named Stephen Girsky as a director of the automaker.
The appointment was disclosed in an e-mailed statement from the UAW. The trustees have the right to name one director of the automaker with consent of the union.
Girsky is a former Morgan Stanley equity analyst and has been an adviser to the union and to Rick Wagoner, the automaker’s former chief executive officer. He also represented GM in the pending sale of the Saturn brand to Penske Automotive Group Inc.
Girsky is named to the board a week after interim Chairman Kent Kresa announced the selection of former AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Officer Edward Whitacre Jr. to serve as chairman of GM when it emerges from bankruptcy. The U.S. is expected to select four more directors and the Canadian government one director.
GM will have 13 directors when it emerges from bankruptcy, including Kresa and five other current board members: CEO Fritz Henderson and directors Philip A. Laskawy, Kathryn V. Marinello, Erroll B. Davis Jr. and E. Neville Isdell. Six others will retire, including all four who were appointed in the 1990s.