By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
modendahl@etruth.com
WAKARUSA -- Taking his place behind the podium, Wil Cashen held up a photograph from a bygone era and explained how what is old is becoming new again.
The chief executive officer of Electric Motors Corp. and his plans for Elkhart County were the main attraction at a press conference Thursday morning that attracted several hundred. Among the speakers were Gov. Mitch Daniels, Nappanee Mayor Larry Thompson and Wakarusa town manager Tom Roeder, but the crowd gave its warmest welcome and longest standing ovation to Cashen.
Cashen and his California company have entered a partnership with recreational vehicle maker Gulf Stream Coach to manufacture electric light-duty and medium-duty trucks as well as RVs. The venture is expected to bring 1,600 new jobs to Elkhart County by 2012.
"I believe in my heart of hearts, we can rebuild what we have here," the Mishawaka native told the crowd.
Local leaders agreed, expressing confidence that electric vehicle manufacturing can put area residents back to work and lead Elkhart County out of a recession that has taken thousands of jobs.
The photograph Cashen held was a picture of Thomas Edison driving a 1903 Studebaker Electric Runabout. That car, created more than 100 years ago in South Bend, traveled 40 miles on a single charge -- the same distance GM's new Volt electric vehicle can go on one charge.
Cashen credited the Studebaker car company with helping the RV industry take root in northern Indiana. That industry is mature with dealer networks, distribution systems, manufacturers and suppliers. Cashen said that infrastructure is what Electric Motors needs to launch a line of electric-hybrid vehicles using technology he and his partners developed.
As part of the venture, Gulf Stream will install Electric Motors' power-train systems into brand-name pickup trucks, converting the vehicles to electric-hybrid models. The Nappanee company has already started work on a prototype and expects to be able to produce several hundred trucks by 2010, with full production running a year later.
When gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon, Gulf Stream researched hybrid engines, said Jim Shea, company president. However, the technology Gulf Stream determined would be best for RVs was not available. Then Shea met Cashen and realized Electric Motors had the system Gulf Stream was looking for.
The partnership is expected to create up to 200 jobs by the end of 2009, another 400 jobs by the end of 2010 and finally add 1,100 jobs in 2011.
Acknowledging Indiana's troubled experience with ethanol, Elkhart County Council president John Letherman was still excited by this project.
"Electric technology is probably the wave of the future," he said. "These people have got a design and company structure that put it in a position to take advantage of that opportunity."
Daniels put his confidence in more poetic terms.
"Years from now when somebody's child says, 'Daddy, what's this big recession of 2008-09 and how did we get out of it?'" Daniels said, "those of us here today will say, 'Well, it all started on a day in May in Wakarusa.'"