By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com
ANDERSON - The city sits amidst lush Indiana woodlands and crop fields rather than the middle of the California desert. Its people are mainly retirees, health care workers and teachers rather than millionaire software engineers.
But Anderson has more in common with California's Silicon Valley, the epicenter of America's high-tech gadget production, than most might think, say those close to the city's newest efforts to attract business.
City officials and business people are making every effort to take Anderson's automotive past, forever linked to the city since General Motors employed 25,000 people there, and spin it toward the future, hoping the automobile companies of the next generation will be attracted to the former GM engineers who still call the area home.
"I think there's a great tradition if one looks at Silicon Valley," said Mike Hudson, CEO of Anderson's I Power Energy Systems, which developed a natural gas generator that runs using a modified GM engine. "There is a very good model that says success breeds success. When one looks at a startup business or a new high-tech business, you look for a core of talented engineers or people who are interested in engineering, and I think we certainly have that."
Anderson sits in the middle of a triangle with points in northern Indianapolis, Muncie and Kokomo where the automotive industry once was the lifeblood of the area. As the number of active auto factories and jobs continues to dwindle, local officials look for a new industry to fill the void.
"I am optimistic that we are heading in the right direction," said Chuck Staley, president of Anderson's Flagship Enterprise Center, which helps grow startup businesses and has served as a point of attraction for the small alternative energy companies that have come to the city. "We've already got a certain critical mass that's under way here."
Companies like I Power, along with Altairnano, which develops lithium-ion batteries, and Bright Automotive, a Colorado transplant, which recently unveiled its 100-mile-per-gallon Bright Idea fleet vehicle, already call Anderson home. Staley hopes to attract more companies like them using both city efforts and federal stimulus dollars.
Staley and city officials have traveled to Washington, D.C., on numerous occasions seeking $18 million to build a new technology park they hope will attract the right kind of employer. The tech park could involve renovating the former General Motors Plant 20 or building a new 300,000-square-foot facility near the Flagship.
Anderson Economic Development Director Linda Dawson and Anderson/Madison County Corporation for Economic Development Director Rob Sparks will go to Korea and China in the fall to make contact with other alternative energy companies looking to locate in the Midwest.
"I'm getting some traction with some foreign investment," Sparks said. "Hopefully this will be a good summer for Anderson."
Officials and business owners say Anderson has a leg up when it comes to turning itself into an epicenter for alternative energy, particularly electric, vehicles.
"We're staying here because there is a good supply of engineering and there is a good interest in the engineering field," said Hudson of I Power. "We're close to that supplier base (in Indianapolis) and have very good access to the interstates.
"There is a growing density of advanced technology work."
Dawson said the city's large percentage of workers who once were part of the automobile industry when GM ran the city provides an excellent resource for companies looking to call Anderson home.
"We feel like Anderson is a perfect match for this type of activity because of the background," she said. "We have an abundance of electrical engineers in the region that would provide an instant labor source for any company.
"We want to be a center of excellence in this field. We feel like we have all the pieces of the puzzle in the right place with the Flagship, land and labor source that we have in Anderson. We have all the pieces in place to make this happen. I do believe it's starting to happen."
Bill Wylam, who has been involved with the electrification of the vehicle since he helped develop GM's first electric car in the 1990s, said companies like Altairnano and Bright Automotive already had been drawn to the city from Nevada and Colorado, respectively.
"The human capital that exists in the Anderson area, there are people and companies that understand electricity and batteries and motors and automotive systems," he said. "If you go to Bright Automotive, you'll see some of those people today. You'll see Hoosiers that have gone to work there that have these skills, and you will see people from Michigan, Ohio and Colorado that have been attracted to come here because of that program.
"They've agreed Anderson must be a good place to work."
Evan House, vice president of advanced battery systems for Bright, said his company had faith in Anderson.
"Anderson is just the ideal place," he said. "It's an almost perfect storm to put an identity of this nature in Anderson. I'd like to see the Anderson area and the I-69 corridor become the electric corridor of America."
The value of the electric auto
Developing electric automobiles and their components isn't just about jobs for Anderson, although Bright Automotive could bring as many as 3,000-5,000 primary jobs back to the city if it locates its manufacturing plant here. The development is also about leading the way toward a greener future with less dependency on foreign oil.
"The whole petroleum debate has gotten to the point we're looking for an alternative to internal combustion," Sparks said. "I think it has turned the corner to be practical and could be widely available in the next three to eight years. I think we're going to see some pretty dramatic changes in transportation."
Sparks said car companies experimented with electric vehicles in the 1920s, but they were based on lead-acid batteries, which are heavy and impractical. Now, companies like Altairnano and Bright are developing smaller, more powerful lithium-ion batteries that would make driving an electric vehicle more energy efficient than its ancestors.
"Lithium batteries contain more energy; they tend to be lighter and they tend to be more compact," House said. "Lithium batteries are capable of just as much power (as lead-acid). Without the battery, you couldn't have the electric vehicle."
House said lead-acid batteries also would take longer than lithium batteries to charge.
Staley said, at current rates, electric vehicles would save their owners money if gas cost more than $1.60.
The savings would make the vehicles a smart option, Sparks said.
"It's nothing to put 150,000 miles on a car," he said. "It's nothing to put 500-600 miles on a car in a day. What we think lithium will lead to is a whole new change-up. It's real and it's here and I think it's going to revolutionize the way we live."
Wylam said the technology and conditions were right for Anderson to step into the electric automobile spotlight.
"Anderson's doing a lot of things right and it will succeed and it will be a little difficult to imagine exactly what it will be, but I think the continued electrification of the automobile will be a part of it," he said. "I think the future's bright, but it's uncertain and it will take a continued sense of pulling together."