By Ron Littlefield

Friday morning, Mayor Claude Ramsey, Trevor Hamilton and I were interviewed by Jack Ewing, European Regional Editor for Business Week magazine. He was interested in the whole story. We loaded him up with facts, figures and materials - including a copy of the Times Free Press Extra edition that ran the day of the Volkswagen announcement. We can't predict what will come of it, but a little more international exposure for our community can't hurt.

Friday afternoon. The "Invest in Tennessee" session in Frankfort concluded after another four hour session and lunch. We had another gathering of suppliers, but the most significant accomplishment (in my opinion) was the opportunity for our regional representatives to hear and meet Dr. Christof Spathelf of VW. Dr. Spathelf is head of Group Manufacturing Overseas (and that would include us). He was among the original team members that came to Chattanooga early in the year to begin talks with us about the potential plant location. In fact, he is the one credited with advising us to clear the site so that it would be more competitive - which led to the City/County marathon activity to clear and remove brush before the VW team returned in 2 or 3 weeks. He was very complimentary about the city, county and state commitment to the project and added that it was just such "intangibles" that made the difference. After lunch, he fielded questions from members of our local delegation and others. Most interestingly, we met a young man from Signal Mountain - a 1993 graduate of McCallie School who now lives and works as an international lawyer in Germany: Michael Hixson. His late father was one of Mayor Ramsey's doctors. Small world.

Tomorrow: Munich

- Mayor Ron Littlefield