I had heard from friends that they were tearing down the old AC Spark Plug facility, affectionately known as “The Highway.” It had been over eight years since I’d even driven past the place. Then one day while in Michigan my oldest son and I were on an errand and happened to drive right down Dort Highway past the demolition. I stopped the car, got out my phone, and began taking pictures and videos.
There is something sad about a plant closing anyway, like the end of an era. But this particular plant held massive significance for me. My grandfather worked in that building for thirty-three years. During World War II, he tested machine gun munitions in the basement. When I hired in there in 1985 some of the windows were still painted black as protection against bombers from the war. Papa Floyd lived two more years, long enough to see me begin a career at “The A.C.,” and he was proud. It’s also where I met future business partner, friend, and co-author Orrin Woodward, when we were both young, snot-nosed engineering co-op students. There were lots of other great people there too, and my mind is literally filled with memories. My professional education as an engineer took place in that building, as well. I love cars, my first word was “car,” and I have a soft-spot in my heart for the auto industry to this day. Looking back, I guess I came of age in that facility; learning how to supervise production crews, run maintenance groups, and yes, eventually, do some engineering.
I understand job shifting, I think. I have read all about the “flattening of the world” theory and how lower level manufacturing has moved off-shore and those jobs have been replaced by high-tech industry and services. I understand emerging third-world labor and the imbalances in exchange rates (don’t get me started on the Federal Reserve and why this is so!). I lived and studied in Japan for a brief period to understand how East Asia had emerged as a world manufacturing leader. I also know change is inevitable. And I understand the laws of competition and market forces (at least better than the Keynsian economists in our government. For more on this, read Orrin Woodward’s posting today about the Austrian school of economics). I was also directly involved with the struggle between the powerful union and the bureaucractic leadership.
Still, it was painful to watch the dismantling of so many memories. Flint, Michigan, the home of the founding of General Motors Corporation and one of the Industrial Age’s largely unsung heroes, “Billy” Durant, is possibly a picture of bigger things. And these things are more serious, comlex, and less born of conspiracy than was suggested by Flint’s most embarrassing offspring, Michael Moore. Flint can represent what’s left over when one fails to compete. It can represent what happens when a population doesn’t change with the times. It can represent what occurs when entitlement sets into a culture. It can represent the last dying embers of an older way of life. It can represent those left behind in the dynamics of world politics and competition. It can represent a changing of the guard. It can represent the end of an era.
Somewhere, somebody is manufacturing spark plugs, fuel filters, fuel level senders, instrument clusters, circuit boards, and fuel pumps. But they aren’t doing it in Flint, Michigan, anymore. Hopefully, the replacement industries and jobs will be finding their way into people’s lives soon. I know some good people in Genesee county who would be willing to give it another try. Perhaps that’s why General Motors decided to award the new engine plant for the new Chevy “Volt” to Flint.
As I filmed the last portions of the main office being dragged down into rubble, I realized that the very section of the building I was watching come down was the exact spot where I had sat for my original interview so many years before. From youthful hope to dissimilation. The windows we had painted black to hide America’s industrial might from the enemy, we eventually tore down ourselves.
As I drove away that day I noticed two things peculiar, two final salutes to the waste and attitude that had played their part in the demise: the lawn’s sprinkler system was still running, and the barbed wire fences (leaning inward!) were still standing. 
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