Upstate officials head to Europe to lure business

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The trip, scheduled for June 16-23, includes stops in Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart and coincides with a European trade mission planned by Gov. Mark Sanford and state Commerce Secretary Bob Faith.

The itinerary calls for a series of public events as well as "strategic meetings with select German com- panies," the Alliance said Thursday during a press briefing.

"The return on investment, we think, will be very good," said Sam Konduros, Alliance president.

The Upstate delegation will include Jim Barker, president of Clemson University; Knox White, mayor of Greenville; and Bob Geolas, the newly hired executive director of ICAR. Also scheduled to go on the trip are business recruiters from the counties of Greenville, Spartanburg, Pickens, Laurens and Cherokee and the cities of Greenville and Greer.

Konduros said he's hoping to persuade German auto-industry suppliers that already have branch manufacturing operations in the Upstate to follow the "Michelin model" and establish research and development facilities here as well. He referred to the French tire maker's pattern of investment in South Carolina. Michelin built its first U.S. plant in Greenville in 1975. Later, it brought its North American headquarters to Greenville and expanded its research here.

Persuading German auto suppliers to follow that pattern is an easier sell now that the International Center for Automotive Research, the automotive research park that Clemson University is developing in Greenville, is well under way, Konduros said.

About 30 percent of all foreign-owned companies in the Upstate hail from Germany — a far greater percentage than any other country.

So far, the Upstate's business ties with Germany are weighted toward Bavaria, the region that BMW calls home. Konduros said he's hoping to boost the Upstate's visibility in other parts of Germany with the upcoming trip.

The Upstate delegation is scheduled to attend a series of events in Munich, the capitol of Bavaria, but the delegation will also travel to Stuttgart, home of DaimlerChrysler and Porsche, for an automotive conference, and to Nuremberg for a reception at the headquarters of Rodl & Partner, a large German accounting firm with Upstate ties.

"We'd like to get as comfortable with other parts of Germany as we are with Bavaria," Konduros said.

The Munich events include a reception at the home of the U.S. Consulate, where the guest list includes Christopher E. Bangle, an American who is worldwide design director for BMW Group.

Also in Munich, the Upstate delegation is scheduled to eat lunch with Erwin Huber, head of the Bavarian State Chancellery. Huber and other members of the Bavarian parliament visited Greenville last year. They ate dinner with the Greenville mayor and toured the BMW Manufacturing Corp. plant near Greer.

The Upstate Alliance is also sponsoring an "industry forum" in Munich hosted by Barker to inform German auto executives about ICAR.

Sanford leaves for a six-day trip to Europe on June 19, the state Commerce Department said Thursday. He's scheduled to attend a reception the Upstate Alliance is sponsoring in Munich and be keynote speaker at the automotive conference in Stuttgart.

The Stuttgart conference is sponsored by Forum Amerika, a Cologne, Germany-based service company that helps German automotive companies penetrate the North American market. In March, Forum Amerika led a delegation of eight small- to medium-sized German auto-industry companies on a visit to Greenville and Spartanburg.

Sanford is also traveling to France, where he will meet with Michelin executives, and to Switzerland, where he will meet with executives of Roche Holdings, a drug company with a facility in Florence.