GM plant manager in Moraine, Ohio, says workers must have backup plan

Sep 03, 2008 (Dayton Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- GM | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Sep. 3--MORAINE -- Steve Brock was returning from a cruise celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary when he learned that General Motors Corp. was preparing to announce the fate of the plant he managed.

Brock, 46, made it back to Moraine Assembly just in time for the announcement early June 3.

On that day, GM decision-makers said production would stop at the Moraine plant by 2010. Brock had to deal with fallout on multiple fronts: Some of the plant's 2,300 workers were shocked. Suppliers weighed their impact. Government officials wanted to know if the decision could be reversed, and if not, they wondered if they could help.

Brock's tenure at the plant's helm since November 2007 has been that way: dizzying.

A United Auto Workers strike against American Axle, a GM supplier, shut the plant from early March to late May this year. Gasoline prices lodged near $4 a gallon in the spring before falling again. And GM itself has hemorrhaged financially, reporting a loss of $15.5 billion for the second quarter of 2008. The automaker has lost money in four of the last five quarters.

"You've never seen so much volatility as we've had in a six-month period -- ever," Brock said in an interview in his plant office Wednesday, three months to the day of GM's plant-closing announcement.

Still, the job for Brock and his team hasn't changed: To make the best mid-size SUVs they can even while they prepare for a future that may have nothing to do with the automotive industry.

"That's something I think about a lot -- making sure that people are making the appropriate plans," Brock said. "It's never too soon. You've got to have a plan A and a plan B."

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