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During the next nearly three decades, as Gaunt worked her way up, she relocated ten times.

When I interviewed her in 2000, in Oakville, Ont.,she had been president and CEO of Ford Motor Co. of Canada since 1997 — the first woman to hold that position.

With Gaunt there were no time-wasting preliminaries. Barely five minutes after the interview began, she was deep into who she is and what she believed in.

No matter how busy the day, Gaunt set aside at least an hour for reflective quiet to write to friends, read or pray. She called the hour her “gift of time.”

The previous day she had used the gift to read “Are You Somebody?” by Irish journalist Nuala O’Faolain about her battle for self-esteem.

“We always underestimate the human potential. Given the right word or the right kind of support at a point in time, it can virtually change a person’s life. That’s why that book drew me in.”

And why it resonated. “It’s important to know who you are and what you stand for, personally as well as professionally. That you not only inherently know the company’s vision and goals but you passionately believe in them. Then what you do is you go about teaching, role modelling and behaving in a fashion that’s consistent with all of that.”

Gaunt’s vision was the byproduct of growing up in a high-achiever environment. As the first-born she was supposed to be a boy so was named after her grandfathers, Robert and Andrew.

For her first two years, Bobbie Andrea Gaunt was raised as a boy in Washington, Penn., wearing overalls and cowboy outfits, playing with baseballs and horses. Once a younger brother arrived she was raised as a girl.

Her father worked in a steel mill so she lived in a unionized, industrial environment. Her mother instilled values such as never being afraid to be different.

Gaunt served as Western regional manager and various jobs at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.

When she heard that the head of Canadian operations position was coming open, she asked for the role with its range of duties including marketing, administration and manufacturing in eight plants.

“In the first 18 months there were nights when I woke up saying, ‘What have I done to myself here?’ While I really enjoy challenges, it was pretty intense for a while.”

“Canada is the fourth largest market for us. The attitude toward Canada is, if you can’t do it in Canada, you probably stand a very small chance of doing it anywhere else.”

That passion was revealed in her first speech to some of Ford Canada’s 565 dealers shortly after her appointment.

“I got up and said, when people talk about you and they talk about me and the venerable brand that we’re privileged to represent, when you consider its history, where we’ve come from, who we are, I want them to say, ‘They love you, they love Ford.’ There was this gasp in the audience, ‘What did she say? Love?’”

“The industry does have this reputation for being pretty straight and never using words like soul or passion or love. We do have souls. I consider that an advantage.”

Gaunt introduced other revolutionary thinking to Ford Canada’s 17,000 employees who the previous year produced 1.5 million engines and 685,000 vehicles in eight plants, 78 per cent of which were exported to the U.S.

A novel consumer outreach program she launched included the first website where buyers could choose a model, design and price it, then track the vehicle through the ordering process right up to delivery. Customers could also search among vehicles in inventory at the various dealers.

E-commerce was revolutionizing the business in other ways, too.

“There’s nowhere to hide. Before the internet, I’d try to talk to two customers a week. I’m talking to four customers a day now using email and I do it myself. It doesn’t go to some pie-in-the-sky place, a virtual Bobbie Gaunt.”

As a result of her leadership, she was named a corporate officer, the first Ford of Canada president to be elected a vice-president of the parent company since Edsel Ford in 1928.

Usually such an appointment meant a move to head office but at the capstone of her career Gaunt told them, “It’s been very rare in my experience that I’ve been allowed to stay somewhere long enough where I could finish what I’d begun.”

Mission accomplished, Gaunt retired six months after our interview.

She and husband Bob moved to Saugatuck, Mich., to enjoy volunteer roles such as board member for Saugatuck Center for the Arts. Just another place needing Bobbie Gaunt’s heartfelt help.