A top official for shipping giant UPS said here Wednesday that Chattanooga has grabbed its attention due to the Volkswagen assembly plant and supplier businesses.
“Any place that opens a facility as big as the Volkswagen assembly plant and all the surrounding business — that certainly gets our attention and we expect our business will grow accordingly,” said David Abney, the Atlanta-based company’s chief operating officer.
He said that as UPS gets more business, opportunity will come for its local facilities to grow.
“If because of the automotive plant and the other businesses, it causes us to have more business, obviously in those places we create more jobs accordingly,” Mr. Abney said in remarks after addressing the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce’s Spirit of Innovation Awards luncheon.
Mr. Abney said UPS is seeing the economic recovery, though it’s not as strong as it would like. He cited UPS’ first-quarter results released Tuesday of a 33 percent hike in profits to $533 million.
“We expect the rest of the year to be reflective of what we saw in first quarter as far as our results,” said Mr. Abney, who began a UPS career in 1974.
Mr. Abney said vision, passion and a nurturing environment are cornerstones for innovation.
He noted that Chattanooga residents had vision a couple of decades ago when they created the Vision 2000 report which created a blueprint for riverfront and downtown redevelopment.
“It was wondrously executed,” the Greenwood, Miss., native said.
He mentioned a couple of other Chattanooga innovations, such as Ernest Holmes’ creation of the tow truck business and MoonPies by Chattanooga Bakery.
Ben Brock, president of Kruesi Award winner Astec Inc., said the Astec Industries subsidiary will continue to develop environmentally sensitive products such as its Double Barrel Green System.
“We believe the entire industry will go this route,” he said, adding that the system creates a 14 percent cost and emissions savings.
SPIRIT OF INNOVATION WINNERS* Astec Inc. — Kruesi Award for developing a “warm-mix” asphalt cement without use of expensive or caustic additives or systems.* Enerfit — Early Innovator Award for its system of energy-saving retrofitting of commercial air-conditioning units.
Enerfit owner Ron Patch, who received the Chattanooga Technology Council’s Early Innovator Award, said the system designed for larger air-conditioning and heating units is being tested locally. He said field tests show a total unit energy savings of 40 percent to 70 percent.
Tom Edd Wilson, the Chamber’s chief executive, said companies nominated for the awards show “there’s a lot of innovation going on in this community.”
Other Kruesi nominees were Glenveigh Medical, Global Green Lighting, Innovative Software Design, Interlock Industries, Lectrus, and Thermal Transfer Composites. Other Early Innovator finalists were Engagency and Skoodat.
VW’s $1 billion assembly plant is slated to open early next year and employ 2,000 workers.