ECCO Group employs over 200 people in Boise Idaho that design, manufacture and market electronic safety products for commercial vehicles. ECCO supplier GM Truck and Ford truck on a small basis. However, about 50% of ECCO’s sales come from small and medium size commercial vehicle OEMs, including construction equipment, heavy trucks, utility company trucks, school busses, police car, ambulance and fire truck manufacturers and upfitters. These OEM’s and upfitters depend on Ford and GM for vehicle chassis and engines as the platform for their vehicles. Further, the same parts suppliers to the Big 3 also provide critical parts, from basic brakes and seats, etc. all the way to complex electronic systems. A collapse of particularly Ford or GM would have adverse ripple effects on parts suppliers’ ability to supply the specialty vehicle market, as well as on the specialty vehicle manufacturers to get platforms and critical components to continue in business.

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Jim has over 18 years of automotive and bearing related experience. Prior to joining SKF he worked for a competitor for 10 years that included several business related functions including accounting, anti-dumping review and litigation, contract review, product marketing, and automotive sales.

Jim received a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting with a minor in communications from Eastern Michigan University. He  is currently a member of the MSED (Marketing and Sales Executives of Detroit) and represents SKF to the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce.  In addition to Jim’s business focus he is also actively involved in his local community.  Jim was elected to Dexter Village Trustee in 2001 and in 2004 was elected Dexter Village President through November of 2007.  Jim has also been a Fire Board member since 2004 and owns his own small business.

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“I am a Team Leader in the Chassis Department ( hubs, mufflers, stabilizer bars).

I have been affiliated w/ General Motors since 1986 in the Baltimore plant as summer help and hired in 1994.

Transfered to the Wilmington Plant 2000 to 2003 back to Baltimore 2003 to 2005 plant closing, then back to the Wilmington plant. We currently build the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky and Opel GT for export.”

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Congress needs to support bridge loans to the US Auto industry because
this country cannot remain the world leader as a service economy. The
Arsenal of Democracy didn’t import the Jeeps, tanks, and ships that saved a crumbling world. It was Detroit. My own grandfather was an executive
engineer and converted the Motor Products plant at 11801 Mack to wartime production and then back to automotive after the war. Years later I worked
at the same address as a Chrysler Senior Engineer on the Viper program.
Today that same plant produces modern efficient Chrysler power plants. We spoke English, not German or Japanese. It is critical to Michigan, to
America, and to our national security that we wake up and support the
American auto industry.

When your real estate agent pulls up in a Lexus and says “I can’t find
anyone to buy your house” is this country really too arrogant or stupid to
figure it all out? It takes product, not paper, to create wealth,
security, and jobs. It’s not protectionism to look inside first and keep
the country strong   It’s just good business.  Put on your own oxygen mask before you help the person next to you.

We watched our representatives create, then bumble the banking crisis,
roll over and play dead to the WalMart world economy, pour hundreds of
billions of tax money into useless stimulus checks and unrestricted bank
bailouts, yet now they rap the knuckles of the auto industry like errant
children begging for candy.  Washington has no clue what it takes to
create world class product, the massive capital investment and time
required to turn steel (remember steel?) into safe, efficient vehicles, or
the incredible strides American auto makers have made in the last 20
years?  We ARE building cars and trucks America needs and wants to drive.
Get that rusty ’49 Desoto out of your head.  Go find out what America
really builds today. Go find out what America really buys.

IT’S THE ECONOMY!

Did you know the Chevy Impala outsells the Honda Accord?  In fact,  GM has 3 of the top 10 selling cars in America, Ford has one, and the Dodge
Charger is number 11?  Toyota sales are down 34% this month.  Porsche has
temporarily stopped production. GM makes more 30+ mpg cars than anyone in the world.  Unlike the mortgage market, nobody can buy a car without
credit, nobody can buy a car without a job, and the industry cannot
survive without credit!

IT’S THE ECONOMY!

Washington thinks the Big 3 are mis managed and ignorant and the unions are greedy, yet does nothing to deal with Health Care, Pensions, massive
Product Development or new technology costs.  The Japanese do, and they
manipulate the Yen to stay sure their products are profitable overseas.
China? They own their auto industry.  Germany?  What did they do to
Chrysler when it made money?  Let the American industry collapse and see the tsunami ripple through 6 million Americans all over the country.  1 in
10 jobs in depends on American Automobile and truck production. 6 million
casualties!  If we let the industry collapse into bankruptcy there is
little hope of resurrection.  The investment and lead times are beyond
comprehension.

America will not remain the world leader if we let the rest of the world
do our homework  We need to support our own industry!  This isn’t a mom
and pop store.  It takes billions to develop technology, meet government
standards, produce and service a full line of modern efficient cars and
trucks, stay competitive, and recruit the brain power to keep America
moving forward. Normal channels of credit are not available and this
credit crunch impact dealers, suppliers, customers, real estate, retail
services, and vehicle manufacturers alike.

You are elected to support America and America needs it’s premier industry
alive and strong.

Support the Bridge Loans to the Big 3 or America pays a far greater price
not far down the road. Let this economic meltdown be the Pearl Harbor that awakens the sleeping giant once more.

Kenneth C. Nowak
Chrysler LLC – Retired after 36 yrs.

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I have heard politicians talk about letting the auto companies file for bancruptcy and they would emerge stronger through reorganization. Do they realize that this would effect many more businesses than tier one suppliers and dealers?  I know they see tier one supplier “A” has X amount of employees that also would be affected.  Do they understand that tier one supplier “A” buys material, parts and services from countless smaller businesses?  If the auto companies were to reorganize, these companies would not get paid.  Most of them would not be able to reorganize themselves, they simply would go out of business.  I am a small company with gross sales of less than $350,000.00 per year.  A small job shop that makes parts for the auto suppliers.  I don’t think the politicians have me included in their numbers but would you please make them understand that there are hundreds of thousands of tier 2 & 3 suppliers in this category that supply millions of pounds of plastic and steel, countless parts that goes into the equipment they build for the auto companies which amount to many more jobs and tax revenue than they realize.  I would not be able to reorganize. Businesses like mine along with the taxes I pay would be shut down, and if the people who are against these loans don’t understand that if we go down their businesses and jobs are at risk, then they deserve to lose their jobs too.

Sincerely,
Dan Eckert
Lancast Urethane,  Inc.

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To Whom It May Concern:

I am an engineer with General Motors.  I have two children, ages 6 and 4.  My wife works part time, goes to school and takes care of our children on a full time basis.

What is to become of my family, should Congress decide the domestic Automobile Industry not worth saving?  My story is literally the story of thousands upon thousands of hard-working, tax paying, voting Americans.  My story is shadowed in all 50 states, by people who have done nothing wrong, have played by the rules, but are being told by an unfeeling Congress that our futures, and those of our children, don’t matter to them.  Remember, we are among those who put you in office.  And there are many of us who are beginning to regret that decision.

Why are toxic pieces of paper, bad debt driven by the insatiable greed of our banking and credit institutions, worth more to our government than manufactured wonders of technology? I don’t believe there are many sitting on Capitol Hill that realize the years of work and ingenuity that have gone into many of the things they take for granted in the common domestic car or truck.  And all of that technology was developed PREVIOUS to our domestic manufacturers asking for help from this government.  What has Wall Street ever developed or invented?  The magnetic strip on the back of a credit card?   Why is it that an industry who has NEVER asked for help as a collective entity is not worth saving, but the financial industry asks for and receives help almost every time they ask.  They have done that numerous times in America’s history.   And when they receive that help, does it ever really strengthen the economy?  Have your promised bailouts strengthened our economy now?  Or does that money simply get stored away in their deep pockets, never to be seen again.  The economy is driven by people, not financial institutions.  The economy is driven by Main Street, not Wall Street.  Those who represent the domestic automobile companies may be highly paid, but they are representatives of mostly middle class America, not the flashy lifestyles and indulgences of the corporate executives they are in person.  Congress must be made to understand that.

When national disasters have taken place, have foreign companies come to our aid?  If so, have they responded on the same level as domestic manufacturers?   Or was it manufacturing here in America that offered help, both in the way of products and capital?  After the September 11 attacks, it is GM that got America Rolling with its 0% incentive programs.  And those programs, though they hurt the bottom line of the company, were continued until the economy strengthened and the consumer fear ceased to exist.  What exactly did the financial institutions do to help?  I don’t recall that they did anything.  Yet, GM was made to feel as if they couldn’t sell vehicles without those incentives by a domestic bashing national media.  This is the same media that puts a domestic auto manufacturers recall on page 1, but puts a foreign recall on page 12.   Where are the articles showing how Ford has better quality than Toyota?  Why are those not on page 1?  Where is the articles showing that the Chevy Malibu is the highest rated vehicle in initial quality by J.D. Powers?  Where is the articles showing that when GM vehicles had their brand badging removed, independent studies showed people ranked them higher in quality than foreign competitors, yet when the GM badging was put back on, those people then ranked the GM cars lower.  That is about perception, not reality.  And our media here in America have played to that perception, often bashing domestically manufactured vehicles for sins of the past.  Time to stop living in the 1980′s and step into the 21st century of automobile manufacturing, where domestic automakers are now equal to or better than the foreign competition.  This is the same media that supports the Wall Street bailout, but the majority of which oppose any financial aid to the Big Three.  It is easy to see which side of the bread theirs is buttered on.

And I think the same goes for our politicians in Washington, D.C.  They barely bat an eyelash at insurance agencies and banks asking for astronomical loans and handouts, yet they pull out a microscope to go up the collective behinds of the Big Three when they ask to be included in a package already passed.  Do you think we aren’t watching?  Do you think we don’t understand?  Who is lining your pockets, ladies and gentlemen of Congress?  We are watching.  And ladies and gentlemen of Congress, where are YOUR plans to help?  Where are YOUR plans to help build an infrastructure within the United States to support alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles already developed by the domestic automakers?  Where is the plans to develop pipelines for E-85, rather than forcing the industry to truck their cargo?  Where is the plans to add hydrogen stations across our nation?  Where are YOUR plans to help us become a “green” nation in this global move towards helping reduce reliance on petroleum and reduce global warming?  It is not all on the automakers to solve this issue.

So, while there are many who may feel that as someone with direct ties to the domestic automotive industry my request that the Big Three be given their bridge loans has selfish reasoning, their are millions of others who are wishing the same as I.  I believe that when a large group of individuals have a common cause, selfishness is not the term.  Realism is a better word for it.  Yes, I want my family to be kept financially secure.  However, I don’t want that just for my family, but I want that for all the families who have ties to the automotive industry.  For if just my family were secure, but all others are not, my security wilI be lost shortly thereafter.  So I have that concern for the dry cleaners, the restaurant owners and their staff, the dealership owners and their staff, the paper suppliers, the computer technology folks, the life insurance sales people, the advertising people, the office furniture suppliers, the countless vendors of numerous office products used daily by white collar workers, the countless vendors of numerous products used daily by blue collar workers, and for everyone who is at risk of losing something should the Big Three be forced to file either Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  In reality, to turn your back on the domestic automakers is to turn you back on America itself.  You would blame domestic automakers for outsourcing jobs, yet you would approve outsourcing the entire auto making industry to our foreign rivals.  Where is the logic in that?

Respectfully,

Michael D. Morelli

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I don’t work for the Auto Industry but I live in Michigan and realize how
important they are not just to the State but to the whole region.  I do
have family that is either retired from GM or still working for them.
People that don’t live here don’t realize how important they are to our
Economy and it really angers me that they are given the third degree from
Congress but they are just throwing money at the banks.  The big three is
American and yes they need to make changes but I feel that Congress is
picking the wrong time to start nit picking them.  There are a lot of
people whose jobs are some how associated with the Auto industry
whether directly or indirectly.

We here in Michigan have been in a recession for
quite some time the rest of America just did not know about it because
they don’t live here.  I work for  a bank and I would rather help the Auto
Industry than the Banks.  I do believe they are asking for a loan not a
bailout.   Come on Congress there are lives at stake here if you do not
help them we will all be on welfare!!!!!!

Barbara Sprague

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“My facility in Nevada represents the lives of men and women in the automotive industry that depend upon the automotive market for their livelihood. We encourage every effort that can be made to ensure we have a secure and robust automotive manufacturing base that will provide financial stability for our families.”

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“I have been working in the automotive arena for BorgWarner Morse TEC, Inc. for 23 years. I began my career as a Product Engineer and have served in various capacities from Product Engineering Supervisor, Technical Liaison in Italy, Manager of Quality Engineering, and Director of Operations. I am also a Board member for Tompkins County Area Development an organization that promotes the creation of Employment opportunities in this area of New York State.”

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