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Companies in the News
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Kia Georgia Training Center Opens in West Point
Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia Inc.’s workforce training facility has nearly 20,000 square feet of classroom and lab space fitted to train the some 2,500 total employees to be hired at the plant. The training center is the first building at the company’s $1.2 billion complex to officially open its doors. The automotive manufacturing plant, the first in the U.S. for South Korea’s second-largest car company, is slated to begin production in 2009. Georgia and Kia officials heralded the opening as a tangible sign of the fruitful interaction between the state and the company. “The opening of the Kia Georgia Training Center demonstrates the commitment and effectiveness of Georgia’s partnership with Kia,” Mr. Perdue said. Central to that partnership has been Kia’s use of Georgia’s Quick Start workforce training program to manage many of its personnel needs. Quick Start launched KiaJobsInGeorgia.com last March as a one-stop Web site where potential employees could learn about Kia and the application process. Quick Start then developed software to support an online-only application procedure. Georgia’s Department of Labor provided free Internet access at its 53 facilities across the state to help facilitate the process.Kia received 43,000 job applications in the 30-day recruitment period at the beginning of this year. Some 97 percent of the applications came from high school graduates. “The state of Georgia and especially Georgia Quick Start have provided exceptional support for our project,” Mr. Chung said at the ceremony. “The quality of this training center is the best we have ever seen.” Mr. Chung, son of Hyundai Motors Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo, recently announced that he would step aside from his role as Kia’s CEO. He retains his position as president and will focus on the company’s international business development, according to recent news reports. More than 400 state and local officials and businesspeople attended the ceremony, according to a Georgia press release.
Georgia Innovation Centers Under New Management
The centers allow Georgia businesses to access university-level research, research grants and business counsel in five industries. They were founded by Gov. Perdue in 2003 to promote growth in agriculture, aerospace, life sciences, logistics and manufacturing and are located in Tifton, Warner Robins, Augusta, Savannah and Gainesville respectively. “This program’s ability to ‘connect the dots’ between business, academia and government creates a business climate perfect for growth,” said Heidi Green, the department’s deputy commissioner for global commerce. “By bringing the centers into (the department), we can ensure companies we recruit and assist have all the tools they need to develop new ideas.” Ken Stewart, the department’s commissioner, said that the industries represented by the centers were chosen by the Commission for a New Georgia, also founded in 2003 by Mr. Perdue to increase efficiency in the state’s management.
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Highroad Presentations began working with companies interested in doing business abroad by offering consultations on how business is conducted in other cultures. Highroad Global Services is to continue this mission while also offering cultural assessments, coaching and processing solutions in the U.S. and abroad. Highroad President Vicki Flier Hudson said that studies by cross-cultural business analysis firms around the world show that cultural integration impacts businesses on several levels. “These studies show global leaders that culture does impact the bottom line as well as morale and attrition rates,” she said. Ms. Hudson has lived in Nepal and worked in China, Germany, India and Thailand. Her clients include Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc., the Carter Center and the Southern Center for International Studies, as well as a number of companies based outside the U.S. For more information, visit www.highroaders.com.
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Atlanta Sports Marketing Firm Opens London Office Atlanta-based sports marketing firm Helios Partners announced that it has opened an office in London, the host of the 2012 summer Olympic Games. The new office complements the company's existing base in the Olympic cities of Atlanta and Beijing. “London offers another excellent opportunity for Helios to leverage its Olympic Games sponsorship knowledge and expertise,” said Carter Westfall, Helios' managing director for London. The company is looking to expand its client base in the United Kingdom, where it has worked principally with clients Lloyds TSB and Deloitte, Mr. Westfall said. Visit www.heliospartners.com.
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Delta to Add New Flight to Dominican Republic Delta Air Lines Inc. will continue its expansion in the Caribbean by adding daily nonstop service to Santiago, Dominican Republic. The flight is slated to begin Dec. 20 and will complement existing nonstop service between Atlanta and the nation’s capital, Santo Domingo, and the cities of Puerto Plata and Punta Cana. Delta is undergoing the largest international expansion in the company’s history, and the Caribbean continues to be one of the airline’s central target markets. According to a company press release, Delta has added or announced more than 40 new routes in the last year. Visit www.delta.com.
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