[Rick Parker]

While many of you are looking down your noses at GM, I will share a story that is a little closer to home. Toyota has decided to divest itself from what was once a joint effort with GM to build vehicles at the Fremont Ca assembly plant. They will shut the plant for good sometime in April 2010. It is estimated that nearly 40,000 jobs will be impacted in Northern Ca. Many of the suppliers for components are centered though the Bay Area and several San Joaquin Valley Cities, they will close as well. I have a very good friend that does consulting work for a nearby business that is a supplier who will no longer be needed. He has built and modified many of the machines in the plant to work quicker, more efficiently and with greater safety. There are suppliers in the area that make Seat cushions, brake lines, plastic parts used in door panels, dashboards and any sort of injection moulded plastic part you can think of, even the frames for the pickups. Some of these companies have been around in one form or another before the joint venture began, they supplied parts to GM exclusively. Toyota however uses a supply sytem that eliminates large inventories oor stocks of unused parts at the assembly plants, they kept a 1 day supply in the pipeline, based on their projected production they ordered parts to allow the assembly of a certain number of vehicles daily. The parts were transported daily for use the following day. The employees of the various suppliers with a few exceptions will all be out of work, so please realize all these companies must do things that we may not agree with but the Automotive Industry or a branch of it touches more lives in one way or another than any other I can think of and puts food on the table for all those families.