A new chapter for ex-GE chief Jack Welch

Jack Welch greets you at the door and wants to talk about the Red Sox. The former chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. is a Bostonian now. He lives in Beacon Hill with his new wife, Suzy Wetlaufer, the former editor of the Harvard Business Review. The two share an office in a sunlit room with a view of Boston Common. Welch, 68, spends his time giving speeches, consulting, and working on a business book with Wetlaufer. He spoke with Boston Globe columnist Charles Stein.
You spent 20 years as a chief executive. Do you miss the job?

I haven't missed it for an hour. You turn the page and fill the time. I have my consulting business, I'm speaking, and I've had a romantic escapade that turned out to be the great thing in my life.

But you did get interviewed this year about taking the top job at Coca-Cola?

A number of Coke directors were at my wedding reception and approached me about the job. It's a funny thing to talk about when you are dancing. But I did consider it seriously.

When you are a kid from Salem, when the fire bell rings, you jump on the pole and come down. It's an instinctive reaction. But in the end I thought: Do I really want to be flying at 2 a.m. to the opening of a new bottling plant in Nepal?

The public image of chief executives goes up and down, but in the past few years it seems to have sunk pretty far.

I think 2002 was the low point. I lived through ups and downs for 20 years. You go from prince to pig. The media makes a guy great, then blows him up. But in 2002 you had some bad guys doing bad stuff.

WorldCom and Enron were tragedies. Much of the trouble came from companies with new business models. They didn't have the processes in place to catch mistakes. Enron was a pipeline company. All of a sudden pipelines are boring and you go from guys with coveralls to guys in suspenders.

One of the things you were known for at GE was ranking managers as A, B, or C players with the idea that the C players would eventually be weeded out.

And everyone thinks: How cruel that is. It is the opposite of cruel. What is cruel is to be told at 55 years old that you stink and that the company has to drop you. The appraisal system most companies use is a fraud. People aren't told where they stand. There is no candor.

One tool companies are using to compete is outsourcing. Early in the presidential campaign John Kerry referred to executives who send jobs overseas as ''Benedict Arnold CEOs."

It didn't make any sense. Outsourcing is part of being competitive, and being competitive is the only answer to jobs. As long as we innovate, there will always be something new to do. Massachusetts of all places is the ultimate test. Old industries left and new ones took their place. I used to go to union plants and people would ask me where their kids would work. I told them: Educate the hell out of your kids. No one can guarantee you a job.

Whom do you prefer in the presidential race?

Bush. He's decisive. I trust him to do what he says. Every ounce of his body is in it for this country.

You are writing a business advice book with your wife. What is that like?

I talk, and Suzy turns it into the CFD -- the crummy first draft. Then we talk some more and she restructures it. We go through some chapters 10 times. It is a terrific experience.

We are in the stage of marriage where we don't argue. We have good firm discussions. Neither one of us is a pushover. We each hold our ground until we get something we can both buy into.