At Nissan Motor's sprawling, 5.2 million-sq.-ft. (483,600-sq.-m.) factory in Smyrna, Tenn., about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Nashville, Emil Hassan sees not only 5,400 employees who make on average US$23 an hour; he sees the work force that has made Smyrna the Japanese automaker's most productive plant seven years in a row.
      "We are currently producing 370,000 vehicles a year at this facility," says Hassan, senior vice president of North American manufacturing for Nissan. "We are very proud of the fact that we have never had to lay off a single person at this plant. Even during a slowdown in production, we managed to keep everyone employed by shifting to a four-day work week. Our workers here are highly skilled and very productive. When we open our manufacturing facility in Canton, Miss., we expect to have 40,000 applicants for 4,000 jobs."
      The Nissan story is instructive when one considers that, 20 years ago, not a single car was built in Tennessee. Today, Tennessee leads the South and is fourth in the nation in total vehicle production. With Nissan in Smyrna and Decherd, Saturn Corp. in Spring Hill and Peterbilt in Madison, Tennessee is the hub of a four-state region (including Alabama, Kentucky and Mississippi) within which one-third of all U.S.-made cars and light-weight trucks are built.

In less than a year and a half, Dell Computer has gone from startup operations in Nashville and Lebanon, Tenn., to full production, shipping more than 2 million PC's. The $32 billion company, founded in 1984, took nine years to ship its first 2 million units.

      The combined employment of Tennessee's automotive assembly plants and suppliers totals 151,000, representing nearly 30 percent of the state's manufacturing work force and 5.4 percent of total state employment. The Tennessee automotive industry's annual payroll is estimated at more than $6.1 billion.
      And these employers aren't standing still. Of the more than 800 automotive suppliers throughout Tennessee, one out of every four announced plans to expand their existing facilities in Tennessee in 2000, with capital investments totaling $1.6 billion. Also in the past year, Nissan and Saturn committed to spend an additional $3 billion to expand their Tennessee plants.
      How does Tennessee do it? Tony Grande, deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Dept. of Economic and Community Development, says that his state has been successful in recruit ing automotive employers because it gives them what they want. "Automotive manufacturers are looking for a work force that is already trained, and with our Quick Start and Job Skills Training Programs, Tennessee provides a high-quality pool of labor. We do especially well with Japanese companies, and we are doing well in rural areas that have a smaller population base."
      Amy Bunton, director of manufacturing services for the department, adds, "We knew that we needed an infrastructure to support the work force, so many of our programs were set up at the technical schools and community colleges around Tennessee to support the needs of the automotive industry."
      Today, that infrastructure includes the Tennessee Manufacturing Extension Program (TMEP) at the University of Tennessee's Center for Industrial Services in Knoxville. The TMEP helps Tennessee manufacturers by delivering on-site programs in facility process improvement, quality management, environmental and safety management, manufacturing management and human resources.
      Bunton notes that "there has been a real push to educate the public on how good and rewarding a career in manufacturing can be. A lot of our high-wage earners are young people in their 20's, many of whom are starting out at jobs paying $17 to $18 an hour." After just two years on the job, a 21-year-old high school graduate can easily earn $35,000 or more per year.
      That's also why the state hired Nashville recording artist Chely Wright to be the spokesperson for the Manufacturing for the New Millennium campaign. Wright is featured in direct mail both to students, touting the benefits of pursuing a career in a factory, and to manufacturers, touting the state's resources to help them with technical and training support.
      But cars aren't the only things they build in Tennessee. At the new 660,000-sq.-ft. (61,380-sq.-m.) complex for Dell Computer Corp. in Nashville, 1,800 employees assemble Inspiron notebook PC's. In Lebanon, Tenn., 1,000 Dell employees at the company's 250,000-sq.-ft. (23,250-sq.-m.) plant put together the Dimension desktop PC.
      Sixteen months after the company announced its twin expansions in Nashville and Lebanon, Dell has shipped more than 2 million computers from its two Tennessee factories. When Dell was founded in 1984, it took the company nine years to ship its first 2 million units.