What the Governor’s Talking about
Today
Thursday, October 7,
2010
Governor Celebrates
Partnership with General Motors Resulting in New Jobs, Investment in Michigan
The governor today visited the Orion Assembly Center in Orion Township to celebrate the announcement by
General Motors that it will invest $145 million in the plant to produce Buick’s
new small car and compact sedan, the Verano, and increase the workforce by 350
employees to 1,550.
In June 2009, GM identified Michigan as one of three
potential locations for its new, small-car assembly project. Rather than
submit a traditional incentive package for this single project, the Michigan
Economic Development Corporation proposed a “global solutions” Michigan Economic
Growth Authority incentive that covered all manufacturing investments by GM in
Michigan. In total, the incentive
package retains 20,000 workers and will generate a total investment of up to
$2.5 billion in GM’s Michigan manufacturing
operations.
Besides the Buick Verano, the Orion Assembly Center is also being retooled to
manufacture a second small car which will be launched next year. GM will
be the only automaker, domestic or foreign, to build small cars in the
United
States for the domestic market. The Buick
Verano, the first compact car offered by Buick in 20 years, will launch in
2012.
Key
message:
- To have a
once-shuttered plant operating at full speed again shows what can happen when
the public and private sectors partner to create new investment and
jobs. The state of Michigan is proud to partner with General
Motors as it continues its drive toward a cleaner and greener
future.
BHK Child
Development Board Designated as Head
Start Center of Excellence in America
The governor today announced that the BHK Child
Development Board of Houghton has been selected as one of the 10 Head Start
Centers of Excellence in a nationwide grant competition among Head Start
programs. In 2009, Granholm selected BHK as Michigan’s sole nominee
to compete in the next round of the federal grant
competition.
The five-year, $200,000 per year competitive grant award
from the national Office of Head Start designates BHK as Michigan’s Head Start
Center of Excellence. The grant will help improve the quality of early
childhood education across Michigan by allowing BHK to share its best
practices with other Head Start programs and other providers of early childhood
education.
Locally, BHK will expand and enhance several of its
family involvement programs aimed at improving the school readiness of
children. BHK currently serves 447 children through its Head Start program
and more than 2,000 children from prenatal through school age through a variety
of services at more than three dozen locations across the western Upper Peninsula.
Key
messages:
- By making sure
that children are given the tools they need to succeed, we will ensure our
kids are ready to begin school ready to learn. BHK’s program is an
exemplary model for other programs throughout Michigan and across the
country.
- The Centers for
Excellence program was established by Congress in the Improving Head Start for
School Readiness Act of 2007. Congress appropriated funding for the
program in 2009. In addition to Michigan, nine other Centers of Excellence were
designated this year in Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky,
Maryland, North
Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
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