Fuyao Glass helps 'Little Detroit' regain jobs,pride

The economic recession hit the Dayton, Ohio, area hard, especially Tonya Adams and her fellow workers at the General Motors factory.

When the plant was home to 5,000 workers and turning out trucks, people called Dayton "Little Detroit". In 2008, the last truck came off the assembly line. The lights were turned off just before Christmas. Tonya had worked there for 20 years; her husband for 15.

She said that it was "devastating" for her to even drive on Hoyle Place, the road next to factory.

She was out of work for eight months before finding a position at a law firm, and that was "relatively quick compared to some people. Many lost homes," she said.

Adams could never imagine that nearly a decade later she would be working again at that GM factory. But this time there would be more robots, along with better benefits and a new name for the street and the factory: Fuyao Avenue and Fuyao Glass America.

Adams is a supervisor of document controls at Fuyao Glass America, where nearly 2,000 local workers are employed, some of whom had been unemployed for a lengthy time or underemployed.

While it has been said that the US is bleeding manufacturing jobs to overseas companies now based in the US, particularly to companies from China, Fuyao Glass Industry Group is doing the opposite. The largest auto-glass maker in China bought the abandoned GM factory in 2014 and invested $600 million. It's the largest Chinese investment in Ohio's history and eighth-largest direct foreign investment in the US over the last decade.

Until two years ago, the 1.6 million-square-foot GM plant was dark and empty, except for a few raccoons. Today, the Dayton factory has been making windshields, backlights and sidelights for Chevy Silverado pickups, the Hyundai Sonata, BMW X5, Ford F150 pickup, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda Civic and VW Passat, among others. Soon, when the factory is at full capacity, the plant will be making glass for one in every four cars sold in the US.

Fuyao's investment is leading a comeback for Dayton and its automotive manufacturing, creating jobs, along with new tax revenue for the city to improve infrastructure, including roads, and sparking a long overdue sense of pride to residents.

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