The General Motors Co. said that an engineering executive who led an inconclusive investigation into problems with ignition switches later linked to 13 deaths retired effective on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Jim Federico, chief engineer for the Detroit automaker's small cars and electric vehicles, retired from the company after 36 years to pursue other interests, the company said on yesterday. A GM spokesman declined to say if the retirement was connected to an internal probe over why it took near a decade to recall 2.6 million vehicles with potentially defective ignition switches and cylinders. Federico is the second executive-level GM employee to suddenly retire from the company. He reported directly to Chief Executive Mary Barra for a brief time in 2011 and then was placed under engineering executive John Calabrese when the product development division was reorganized in July 2012. That same month, Federico joined the ignition-switch investigative team. Barra has maintained she knew nothing of the switch problem until December of 2013, two months before the first recall was issued.
