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Bobby Hitt, BMW Manager of Media and Public Relations

Bmwmc Plant South Carolina

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From the November 2009 issue of Automobile Magazine -

Bobby Hitt Bmw Manager Of Media And Public Affairs

How'd you get the job?
Carl [Flesher, then BMW's North American head of marketing]. One of my favorite stories is about the time he made his first speech [before the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce] in 1992. I was a consultant to him, still at the law firm. We finished writing the speech, and I said, "Let me ask you one other thing . . . " Carl's a natty dresser, a real snappy GQ kinda guy. Clothes hang on him really well - I mean, he could wear a sweatshirt and look overdressed. And I looked at him, he had on full Armani, and I said, "Maybe you have a blue blazer and maybe some gray slacks and a red tie, white shirt?" He said, "Yes." "Wear them," I told him. So he made his speech, and he came off the stage and said, "How'd I do?" I said, "You did great." And he always said, "Best advice you ever gave me was the clothing." We became pretty close. One day he looked at me and said, "Hey, you're a BMW guy." And I said, "Really? I don't know what that is." And he says, "Well, you are one." I told my wife, "I think this BMW plant is going to be the most important business event that's going to happen in South Carolina in a century." I was enticed. Was there much local opposition at the beginning? Not a bit. There was a reasonable level of skepticism in the press, both locally and nationally. You know - BMW takes South Carolina for a ride. It didn't last long. The original deal was, we were gonna spend about 300 million bucks, and the state leased us the land that we're on - fifty years for fifty bucks. And then we have to buy it out for the original price [that the state paid for the land]. It's like a no-interest loan. But there was this sort of golden-goose mentality. It's going on in Chattanooga [where Volkswagen is locating a plant] now. I remember we finished 1993 with about 95 employees - today we have 5000 - and already that year we had requests for more than $15 million worth of philanthropy. The president of the company said to me, "What is the matter with you folks here? We haven't even built the first car, and everybody's lining up at our door and asking for handouts." I said, "Well, you know, we're a poor state, but we got a lot of great ideas." We were such an iconic company that there was this great desire for everyone to touch us and find a way to be a part of us.

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mk40

Regarding economic concerns, the exports from the plant is perhaps a way for BMW to trying to help lessen/address the neg. economic impact of their imports to the US. The asian automakers do that by building many of their bread & butter brand cars in the US w higher US content (as high as 70% on best selling models) but BMW doesn't have a lower brand...other than the small nitch brand mini, so they try to address it another way... that is by exports. If the export figure is as he says (as high as 71%) that would mean the models produced at the SC plant are trade deficit neutral. So it's just the other models such as the 7, 6, 5 series & M cars that have a neg impact on trade deficit. This put them on par w/ or perhaps a little ahead of Toyota & Nissan w their Lexus & Infiniti brand imports. But behind Honda who has started to design, develope & produce Acura models in the US. As for the nytimes article..perhaps that is part of Germany's formula back home for success... this kind of partnership.

Sabato

Some information about the BMW-Clemson relationship would have enriched this piece, if Jamie even knew about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/business/worldbusiness/29bmw.htmlThis guy (Hitt) is his own best PR man... Makes me think of Michael Keaton in "Ging Ho".