J Mays

J Mays, born October 15, 1954 in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, U.S., is Group Vice President of Global Design and Chief Creative Officer at Ford Motor Company. His name is simply "J", named after his grandfather, S J Mays.
Born in rural Oklahoma, Mays started working at his family's auto-parts store at an early age. While attending Maysville High School in Maysville, Oklahoma, Mays enrolled in an occupational drafting program at Mid-America Technology Center in Wayne, with aspirations of architecture.[citation needed] After high school, he studied commercial art at the University of Oklahoma before briefly switching to journalism. In 1976, he transferred to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, graduating in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation design.
Mays began his career as an exterior designer at AUDI AG, a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, in Ingolstadt, Germany. While there he work on the design of the Audi 80. After a brief stint in 1983 at BMW in Munich where he worked on designs for the 5 Series and 8 Series cars, he returned to Audi the following year as senior designer, where he worked on the design of the Audi 100, Volkswagen Golf and Volkswagen Polo.
In 1991, the Mays-designed Audi Avus quattro concept car was unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show. The Avus, named for the 1930s grand-prix racetrack in Berlin evoked the design of the German speed-record cars and gran turismo roadsters of the 1930s.The Avus proved to be significant for both Audi and Mays. The form of the Avus led to the development of Audi's TT, designed by Mays' Art Center colleague Freeman Thomas,[4] later to become head of Ford's Strategic Design in 2005.

Mays headed the Volkswagen Concept 1 project.
Mays moved back to the United States in 1989, to become chief designer at the Volkswagen of America Design Center in Simi Valley, California. While there, he collaborated with Thomas on the design of the Volkswagen Concept 1 concept car, a modern re-interpretation of the Volkswagen Beetle. This was first shown at the 1994 North American International Auto Show, and the positive response led to the car entering production as the Volkswagen New Beetle.
He returned to Germany in 1993 as Audi's design director responsible for the company's worldwide design strategy, development and execution.