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The combination of our empowerment zone location
with our community partnership for training development and
implementation resulted in a powerful equation that benefits
the businesses and community of Southwest Detroit. |
Frank Venegas Jr.
The Ideal Group, Chairman
Hispanic Manufacturing Center |
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| Hispanic Manufacturing Center |
In 1995, Gonzalez Design Engineering,
The Ideal Group,
and Uni Boring,
three suburban Detroit, Hispanic-owned manufacturers of major
parts for the automobile industry, formed a partnership. They
expanded their operations to a 22-acre facility in Southwest
Detroit, a community with a large Hispanic population and an
untapped labor pool. The Hispanic Manufacturing Center (HMC)
became one of the largest and most recognized empowerment zone
operators in the nation, generating combined revenues of $365
million in 2000. The business owners worked with the Mexicantown
CDC and the Southwest Detroit Development Corp., which hired
contractors to restore the area, helped finance the environmental
clean-up of commercial sites for area merchants and organized
community policing programs that reduced crime in the neighborhood.
The Detroit Hispanic Development Corp. created a job-training
program targeting gang members and welfare recipients. They
receive training in welding and advanced techniques such as
computer-assisted production and quality assurance inspection.
HMC has hired 100 of the graduates, and the total number of
jobs created has reached 350. Recently HMC invested $10 million
in expanding offices, improving utilities and refurbishing more
than 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space preparing
the way for up to 700 employees. Community leaders in the area
are now promoting local tourism, sponsoring Hispanic festivals
and marketing campaigns for area restaurants, as well as fostering
more business expansions and relocations to the area.
For more information contact Sylvia Gucken, Assistant to the Chariman of Ideal Steel
(810) 231-1722 ext. 351 or contact her at sgucken@idealsteel.com.
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