Governor Granholm scramblesto save Ford, beef up ASC

[FordMan]

TOM WALSH: Governor scrambles to save Ford, beef up ASC

She hopes to keep Wixom plant, help smaller firm

January 12, 2006

BY TOM WALSH

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Michigan Gov. Granholm is scrambling to play both offense and defense this week during the North American International Auto Show, trying to save as many Ford Motor Co. jobs as she can while trying to convince ASC Inc. and other companies to create jobs by expanding or building new plants in the state.

Granholm met Wednesday afternoon with Anne Stevens, Ford's chief operating officer for the Americas, and Steve Hamp, chief of staff for Ford CEO Bill Ford Jr., to discuss the struggling auto giant's big restructuring plan to be announced Jan. 23.

"Obviously, we're very concerned about Wixom," Granholm told me in a telephone interview after the meeting, referring to the Wixom assembly plant where the Ford GT and two Lincoln sedans, the Town Car and LS, are made. The sprawling 4.7-million-square-foot facility in Wixom has 1,560 workers. "It's important to us, both economically and emotionally," she said.

She said Stevens and Hamp were mum about the specifics of Ford's cost-cutting plan, which is expected to affect 10 to 13 production facilities and eliminate as many as 30,000 jobs.

Granholm said she laid out a strong business case for keeping Wixom open, including tax breaks on personal property and the Single Business Tax. She also said the state would be willing to rebuild the I-96 intersection at Wixom Road if that would help accommodate further expansion or renovation of the plant site there.

On the job creation side, Granholm is trying to convince Southgate-based ASC, a specialty car builder that is evaluating sites for a new assembly plant, to locate its plant here.

ASC wants to build or buy a 500,000- to 600,000-square-foot assembly plant that could build four or five small-volume specialty vehicles at the same time, employing as many as 800 to 1,000 workers, Chris Theodore, ASC vice chairman, said in an interview at the auto show Tuesday.

ASC has about 200 employees at a plant in Lansing that makes 42 components for the retro-styled Chevrolet SSR roadster. But General Motors Corp. recently announced it would be closing its Lansing Craft Centre where the SSR is assembled and ending production of the vehicle.

Theodore said Lansing could be a possible site for the new assembly plant but that ASC would need flexible work rules and a competitive wage scale

Granholm said four or five other states and Mexico are also courting ASC, which wants to make a decision on the site this year.

Granholm is acutely aware that she's in fierce competition with other states and countries for automotive jobs during a chaotic period for the industry. The governors of Ohio and Minnesota have been in Detroit this week and are pitching their states to automakers and suppliers from the Motor City to China.

"They may be here pitching hard, but nobody's working harder than me," said Granholm, who's also gearing up for a re-election campaign at a time when Michigan's economy is stubbornly lagging behind the rest of the nation.

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