Fuyao Glass helps 'Little Detroit' regain jobs,pride

Jeff Hoagland, president of the Dayton Development Coalition, has been part of the project since day one. To him, it has been the "project of a lifetime". Fuyao has brought Dayton "back to our roots", said Hoagland. Other auto suppliers, including those making glass trim and small technologies that go into windshields, are moving to the area, creating more jobs.

"Restaurants are starting to pop up nearby," Hoagland said. And "People are making improvements on their homes," said Adams.

"The roads are getting proper maintenance," said Daniel Curran, president emeritus of the University of Dayton and an independent board member at Fuyao Glass America.

Curran, a sociology professor, was amazed when the Republican-led state government and the Democratic county government came together to make the project happen.

"It says a lot about bipartisanship; what can happen when the government really has an objective," he said.

"Fuyao has been terrific partners. We work with them all the time," Ohio Governor John Kasich told China Daily. "We hope they will expand."

The last truck from the GM plant is on display at the auto section of the Carillon Historical Park Museum. Now, next to it is the first windshield from Fuyao's production line.

"I'm proud they chose Dayton," said Curt Dalton, visual resource manager at the museum.

"They could have gone anywhere else in the world, and they chose Dayton.

"People were very, very sad when the GM factory closed. That was their home, three, four generations worked there. Now we have Fuyao, maybe another three, four generations will work here."

That's the goal of Fuyao's 71-year-old chairman, Cao Dewang: Make Fuyao a home for all the workers.

"Our largest challenges lie in the language barrier and cultural differences," Cao said. "We are working on bridging that culture gap."

Jeff Liu, president of Fuyao Glass America, has started a monthly roundtable program in which the management team listens to workers' concerns and shares the company's latest operational and financial information with them.

For one day each month, from 6 am to midnight, the management team, including Liu, holds seven sessions for all the workers on different shifts. They take questions and tell them more about Fuyao.

During the last session, Curran spoke about the company's Heren Foundation, which has donated $7 million to the University of Dayton to send American students to study in China.

The financial vice-president reviewed the company's financial performance, noting that the Dayton plant lost $41 million in 2016, but management is determined to break even this year.

"We are still in line with our budget," he told the workers. "Bad weather was good for business because people needed to replace broken windshields."

In January of this year, John Withiow and 14 other American supervisors were awarded a trip to Fuyao's headquarters in China to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with the company's Chinese employees.

"They didn't look at us as 'Hey, 15 Americans that just got off the plane'. They called us their family," said Withiow, 52.

Withiow worked in auto manufacturing for 15 years before he started a family business, but that slowed down, and he had not been working for almost two years when he heard that Fuyao was hiring.

When Fuyao Glass came to Dayton, he was one of the first employees to enter the plant. He started on the floor as an associate and worked his way up to production supervisor of lamination. "I expect to retire from here," he said.

Now he has built up savings to travel, but he said that can wait. He wants to learn more skills from his Chinese counterparts at the Dayton plant, and he wants the company to be profitable so his "Chinese family" can go home to their families.

"We are making lots of progress," said Adams, who oversees customer audits, which show that productivity and quality have been improving.

And her Chinese is getting better, too. She learned to say "ni hao" (hello) and "zai jian" (goodbye), and with a little help from her notebook, she can say "tiao tiao dalu tong luoma" (All roads lead to Rome).

hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com