Trotman was a member of the Royal Air Force before joining Ford in 1955 as a management trainee in the United Kingdom.

This was an attempt to unify and consolidate Ford's manufacturing, marketing and product development forces around the world.

Some people considered it a failure, however, as many of the resulting products (like the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique designs based on the European Ford Mondeo platform), were not very competitive in the American market in the long term, and the major restructuring was disruptive to the company.

The inability of senior management to successfully implement this program in the mid- to late-1990s turned out to be a huge opportunity lost, one that Ford was still desperately trying to leverage under the leadership of Alan Mulally in 2007.

Trotman retired in January 1999 after 43 years with Ford in a variety of positions throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific.