United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger and Ford Motor Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Ford signed a watershed agreement late in 2003.

Spotlight on Skills and Research

With hybrid cars and fuel cells all the rage, automakers and their parts brethren from every point on the globe are shining an increasingly brighter light on the importance of training and R&D programs. This too is reflected in some recently disclosed statistics. According to the Cyberstates 2003 report issued by the American Electronics Association, overall high-tech job losses have slowed, and in one area, there has actually been a net gain in jobs: in 2002, R&D and testing labs increased employment by 7,000.
        Asked to what extent university applied research centers or schools affect site selection, Phil Zmuda, senior manager of transactions for Dana Corp., says they play a big role.
        "Our customers are looking to us for innovation," he told a Southern Economic Development Council conference audience in summer 2003. "We are always looking to join forces with a university on R&D. There is a lot of fuel cell work right now, because our folks think in the future."
        So do Hyundai's folks. Specifically, they think of 2010, the year they want to reach the 1-million-units-sold mark in North America. Helping them ramp up to that goal will be a new $117-million Hyundai Technical Center in Superior Township, Mich., replacing an outgrown 33,000-sq.-ft. (3,066-sq.-m.), 41-person center in nearby Pittsfield Township.
        Michigan won out over Alabama, where Hyundai's assembly plant is under construction. That pivotal choice points out the accumulated wealth of engineering and design expertise in the automotive industry's Michigan homeland, where some 40 projects had been announced in 2003 as of mid-November, leading the nation.
        The choice also reveals some mutual lessons: the north gradually realizing the value of incentives, and the south realizing the value of training. Taking an oft-reviled cue from its southern rivals, the state sweetened the pot with a 12-year, $22-million Single Business tax credit from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and a 12-year, $6.4-million tax abatement from the community.
        But Hyundai spokesperson Curt McCallister points out one other simple criterion: "It's a great piece of property."
        After strikes back in South Korea caused Hyundai to lose some $600 million in exports, it perhaps comes as no shock that Hyundai is ramping up in the U.S. faster than previously planned. To be located in Superior Township's Geddes Center Technology Park, outside Ann Arbor, the facility's footprint was expanded by 30 percent to some 220,000 sq. ft. (20,438 sq. m.) not long after the original announcement, although the investment is expected to remain the same.
        Creating some 85 jobs in its first year, the project's original timeline of 400 jobs by 2024 has also now been shortened to 2010. Some $56 million will go toward the facility itself, with the rest dedicated to land and equipment expenses.