The rise and fall of Electric Motors Corporation of Wakarusa, IN

Don Wheeler

About a year ago there was such a dramatic unveiling of cutting edge technology and jobs creation that the Governor of Indiana and the President of the United States were tripping over themselves to get here to claim credit - or at least that's what this blogger thought.

Electric Motors Corporation bought a former RV dealership (which had fallen victim to the economic slowdown) and officials were certain that a vast new Industry (jobs machine) was going to take up the slack caused by the slumping RV and modular housing industry in Elkhart County.  They seemed a shoe-in for stimulus money, and when President Obama scheduled a return to our area it seemed like a done deal.

To many people's surprise the President visited a nearby facility instead - a recently acquired Monaco Coach facility.  Our Congressman, Joe Donnelly, commented at the time that it was probably just too soon to expect the expected announcement of cash infusion.  Things seemed to be chugging along.

In early September 2009 EMC unveiled a prototype of an all-electric pickup truck dubbed "Flash".   As was typical in this time period the reporter got a bit ahead of events.

Electric Motors has already revitalized Wakarusa, bringing hundreds of jobs to the area, and promising more. A big step for a town hit hard by the auto industry's struggles.

It should be remembered that no one was building anything yet.  Still, signs were good.

Then in early November came this story:  Layoffs have some concerned that Electric Motors Corporation moving in wrong direction  Oddly, this was not nearly the news event of the original announcement.

WAKARUSA — It's been 6 months since Wakarusa based Electric Motors Corporation announced plans to turn Elkhart County into an electric vehicle manufacturing center, creating up to 1,600 new jobs along the way. But, now, some in the community are concerned that those plans may be running "off the road."

But it's the next sentence that exposes "the man behind the curtain"

EMC laid off at least 4 employees this week--about 1/3 of its total workforce. 

In other worlds, this company had about a dozen people on the payroll.  This company which hung out the potential of 1600 jobs.  But Wilhelm Cashen, President of EMC said this was just a minor adjustment.

"Our partners purchased a building here in Wakarusa, and that's going to be where we put our training center, our educational center. That will also serve as a training center for the area," Cashen said.

The building, he said, is a former Monaco Coach plant near the corner of State Road 19 and County Road 40.

I passed that building recently, noticed the "For Sale" in front of it.  That's what inspired my investigation and this post.  More on that later.

The last comment on the online version of this really excellent article seems pretty telling to me.

Well, i guess Wil Cashen feels that it's alright to lie to the press. Not only did the whole marketing department lose their positions but, many other people lost their jobs. My sources tell me that only two employees (not board members) are left at EMC.

And the fact that Livernois Automotive is not worried about not being paid by EMC is a totally weird situation. If I was a supplier for a company, I would be really upset if the company I was supplying didn't pay me.

As for others who have done work for EMC, I know for a fact that their finances are in deep trouble because they missed two pay periods and owe many of their employees hundreds if not thousands of dollars (another Wil Cashen LIE). I also know of contract workers who did work in August and September and, as of today (11/9) they still have yet to be paid even though they have contracts and/or work agreements.

Mark my words, this company will not make it. How can you expect to have a good relationship with people who want your product if they do not have a working relationship with the people who make their product into a reality? 

In February of 2010, the Board must have decided to rearrange the deck chairs - and named a new President.  It should be noted that this was a company press release; still, the new guy has serious credentials.

The most recent coverage I could find (March of 2010) clears up the mystery of the "For Sale" sign: 

 

Electric Motors Corp. moves to Plymouth, vows to return to Elkhart County

WAKARUSA — An electric vehicle company that has promised to create jobs in Elkhart County, has moved its offices to Plymouth.

Electric Motors Corp. said it moved to Plymouth and hired Roger Umbaugh, who is a retired certified public accountant, as chief financial officer. Umbaugh retired from H.J. Umbaugh & Associates, which is headquartered in Plymouth.

Another minor shift in the game plan, I'm sure.

I tend to follow local stuff, though I miss some.  I'm really surprised to have heard so little of this tale of promise and failure.  It even took a little bit of digging to put together a useful narrative to share.  The promise was trumpeted to the heavens.  The betrayal - not so much.

Look at us, governor

Fran Quigley

The public speaking trick of looking directly over the heads of your audience reportedly gives the illusion of eye contact without the speaker having to actually engage with folks in the room.I was reminded of this while watching Gov. Mitch Daniels' press conference the day after Congress passed health-care reform legislation.

The governor was addressing Indiana media, but it was clear he was looking over the heads of Hoosiers to gaze longingly at the Republican donors and pundits who are sizing up 2012 presidential hopefuls.

There was a nationwide surplus of hysterical reactions to the health-care legislation, but for sheer cynicism and callousness, our governor had few equals. Daniels announced steps to immediately suspend new enrollments in the Healthy Indiana Plan, known as HIP, which provides health insurance for the working poor. When asked why he would block access to HIP now when the new law would not open Medicaid to these Hoosiers until 2014, the governor reverted to sound bites criticizing reform. "There is no room for innovative programs like HIP, and I think that is a sad thing," he said.

In truth, the reality of HIP has never measured up to the puffery Daniels feeds to sympathetic national media.

Hoosiers who are offered even inadequate and unaffordable insurance through their jobs are summarily kicked off HIP, including my Muncie-area client who faced premiums that would swallow up 90 percent of her take-home pay. While fawning Daniels profiles in The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal suggested that HIP is covering as many as 130,000 Hoosiers, the program is actually capped currently at about a third of that, with tens of thousands of qualified applicants refused access.

Worse, my experience has been that HIP is managed with the same combination of indifference and incompetence that has been the hallmark of Daniels' failed privatization scheme for public benefits. The Wall Street Journal did not interview my clients sitting on HIP waiting lists, or the many who have been shuffled through mazes of contradictory bureaucracy in efforts to deny valid claims or push them off the HIP rolls.

Daniels' PR label for HIP is "innovative," a curious description for a dysfunctional program covering a fraction of those who in other states would qualify for Medicaid. The new health-care law remedies that inequity in 2014, when nationwide Medicaid access for the poor will expose Indiana's brutal accounting trick of balancing the state budget on the backs of sick and low-income Hoosiers.

In the meantime, HIP insurance would be better than nothing. When Daniels bars new enrollments in a fit of partisan pique, he wins his political points at the expense of uninsured Hoosiers forced to skip medication and doctor visits they cannot afford.

But these folks do not fund Washington political action committees for presidential candidates, and they can't vote in the New Hampshire primary. So, apparently, our governor has decided to direct his attentions above and beyond them.

Quigley is an attorney working on local and international poverty issues.