John Manoogian started his career at Ford Motor Company in 1938 in the Apprentice School as draftsman and later moved to the dynamometer laboratory. After serving in WWII, he returned to the dynamometer laboratory as a foreman before moving into a long career in product assurance engineering and quality control. Manoogian worked in this capacity in the Lincoln-Mercury division starting in 1956, in 1958, he moved to the Romeo Proving Grounds, and 1960 became manager of Product Engineering for Lincoln Mercury. In 1962, he moved to the Ford Division, and in 1965 was named quality control manager for the General Parts Division. Manoogian became chief chassis engineer in 1967, and in 1969 was named assistant general manager of the Automotive Assembly Division. After working in Tractor Operations in 1974, and the Climate Control Division in 1977, he was named Executive Director of newly developed Product Assurance, the position he held at the time of the interview. In his oral history, Manoogian discusses his educational background at Wilbur Wright high school and the Detroit Institute of Technology, as well as his time at the Ford Apprentice School. He talks about his work on many general and specific quality control and troubleshooting issues at Ford including engines and transmissions, chassis, and components. He goes into detail about his work in the Tractor Division developing new products and modernizing operations. He wraps up discussing his work setting up Product Assurance, the importance of buy-in at all levels of the organization, and the key role it plays in the quality gap between North American and Japanese cars that existed at the time.

Collection contains 2 cassettes, 2 WAV files, 2 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 1 loose transcript, a resume, and 1 PDF transcript.