Roy S. Roberts built his career inside factories before leading large automotive businesses. Born in Magnolia, Arkansas, in 1939, he grew up in Muskegon, Michigan. After finishing high school in 1958, he worked at Lear Siegler and studied while employed, earning a business administration degree from Western Michigan University in 1970.
Roberts entered General Motors in 1977 and became one of the company's senior Black executives. He moved to Navistar in 1988 and returned to GM in 1990. At Cadillac, he worked in manufacturing and engineering; he then led GMC and, in 1996, the combined Pontiac-GMC division.
An account in Contemporary Black Biography describes Roberts learning from assembly workers after arriving at GM's Tarrytown plant: workers showed him production tasks he did not yet know.
His corporate standing did not shield him from racial exclusion. In 1994, Bloomfield Hills Country Club rejected his membership application. Senior GM executives resigned their memberships in protest, and the club then admitted Roberts.
Roberts became a GM group vice president in 1998, with responsibilities for North American vehicle sales, service and marketing. He retired from the company in 2000, later helped establish Reliant Equity Investors, and in 2011 became emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools, an assignment for which Governor Rick Snyder later praised his management of spending and classroom resources.
Roberts and Maureen Roberts also supported the Detroit Institute of Arts. A 2011 Michigan Chronicle column described their gift for a contemporary African American art gallery.
