Summary

• Laurie Transou retired from Ford as chief program engineer for the Mustang in 2026 after 30 years at the company. She’s the second of three generations of Ford engineers.

• Transou oversaw the design and launch of the Ford Mustang, one of the longest continuously produced nameplates in automotive history, from 2023-2026. This included its 60th-anniversary edition.
• She mentored nearly 100 women automotive engineers and led the Women of Ford product development chapter.

There’s a subtle shift in attention when Laurie Transou (BSE ME ‘90) walks the Mustang line at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant. Workers straighten slightly and glance her way before returning to their practiced cadence. As chief engineer for the Mustang program, Transou moves through a maze of production lines, parts bins and half-finished cars with quiet authority.

When she stops to talk shop, workers offer insights shaped by hundreds of repetitions on the line. It’s an ongoing dialogue between design and reality, carried out in the hum and rhythm of the factory floor.

“She listens to our concerns and helps incorporate changes that make the car more manufacturable,” said Meghan Shinska (BS IOE ‘09), a launch manager and fellow Michigan Engineering alum who often walks the line with her. For more than a century, the University has supplied engineers who helped shape Michigan’s automotive industry.

In return, Ford Motor Company has shaped communities across the state, anchoring towns with assembly plants and employing generations of workers, engineers and skilled trades.

Transou has spent her career at the center of that ecosystem. She is the second of three generations of Ford engineers in her family. A Mustang was the first car she ever drove; a Fox-body GT with a five-speed stick. Four decades later, she’s responsible for launching its newest models.

As chief program engineer, Transou oversees one of the most recognizable vehicles ever built in Michigan. The Mustang is more than a car — it is one of the longest continuously produced nameplates in automotive history, with a deep emotional connection for drivers. “Wherever I go, everybody has a Mustang story,” she said.

In 2024, Transou led one of the most significant programs of her career: the launch of Ford’s limited-edition 60th Anniversary Mustang, a collector’s model that pays tribute to the original 1965 design through a series of modern reinterpretations. In a nod to the Mustang’s first full model year, only 1,965 were produced, making the cars instantly collectible.

Under Transou’s leadership, Ford teamed up with drift champion Vaughn Gittin Jr. to develop the 2026 Mustang RTR, a 315-horsepower coupe designed to make controlled drifting more accessible to drivers of all skill levels.

A passionate advocate for expanding the Mustang’s audience, Transou also developed a strategy to broaden the car’s appeal to women and led the team to achieve the highest Mustang quality levels in six decades.

A framework for success

Transou got her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and she credits the department with providing a strong foundation in engineering fundamentals, a disciplined approach to problem-solving and a deep emphasis on teamwork and collaboration.

“I learned to evaluate complex issues, think critically and make data-driven decisions,” she said. That disciplined framework became central to her career at Ford, where decisions can affect thousands of employees, millions of customers and billions of dollars in investment.

Mentorship as Infrastructure

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a bone-chilling winter day. Snow blankets the parking lot of the sprawling, brand-new Ford World Headquarters building in Dearborn. Inside, dozens of female engineers gather for an event hosted by Women of Ford, an organization that supports women’s professional development, networking and inclusion within Ford. Transou, who retired two weeks earlier, after 30 years at Ford, accepts congratulations and small gifts from longtime friends.

Transou spent 15 years leading the Women of Ford committees and chapters. She personally mentored more than 100 women engineers and reached thousands more through professional development events she helped organize at Ford. Through formal mentoring circles and informal one-on-one guidance, Transou built supportive networks that helped women engineers navigate a historically male-dominated profession.

Today, she’s part of a panel of experts who are sharing their experiences with flexible, part-time work schedules. Transou has deep experience in this area; early in her career, she made the decision to leave the industry and spend eight years raising her children. She worked part-time for several more years before returning full-time.

Transou says that, for young women entering automotive engineering, the challenges are often cultural; finding a voice in meetings, securing stretch assignments and understanding unspoken norms. “For years, I was the only woman in the room,” she said.

Her presence helped change that dynamic, showing younger female engineers that leadership roles are attainable.

That ripple effect extends beyond Ford. Many of the engineers Transou mentored eventually moved into other companies, suppliers, startups or academic roles across the region.

In a state where engineering drives the economy, that kind of leadership shapes not only careers, but the future of Michigan itself.

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Transou is one of the 25,000 University of Michigan Engineering alumni who help make the state of Michigan home to the nation’s third-largest engineering workforce and second-highest concentration of engineers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2025 data. Only California and Texas employ more engineers. In Michigan, 29.5 out of every 1,000 jobs are held by an engineer, nearly twice the national average. University of Michigan Engineering has played a major role in developing this talent, with one in five of the state’s 130,000 engineers holding Michigan Engineering degrees.