The Hispanic Manufacturing Center - The Gonzalez Design Group's Commitment to the Community

In 1995, Gonzalez Design Engineering, The Ideal Group, and Uni Boring, three suburban Detroit, Hispanic-owned manufacturers of major parts for the automobile industry, formed a partnership. They expanded their operations to a 22-acre facility in Southwest Detroit, a community with a large Hispanic population and an untapped labor pool.

The Hispanic Manufacturing Center (HMC) became one of the largest and most recognized empowerment zone operators in the nation, generating combined revenues of $365 million in 2000. The business owners worked with the Mexicantown CDC and the Southwest Detroit Development Corp., which hired contractors to restore the area, helped finance the environmental clean-up of commercial sites for area merchants and organized community policing programs that reduced crime in the neighborhood. The Detroit Hispanic Development Corp. created a job-training program targeting gang members and welfare recipients. They receive training in welding and advanced techniques such as computer-assisted production and quality assurance inspection.

HMC has hired 100 of the graduates, and the total number of jobs created has reached 350. Recently HMC invested $10 million in expanding offices, improving utilities and refurbishing more than 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space preparing the way for up to 700 employees.

Community leaders in the area are now promoting local tourism, sponsoring Hispanic festivals and marketing campaigns for area restaurants, as well as fostering more business expansions and relocations to the area.

The combination of our empowerment zone location with our community partnership for training development and implementation resulted in a powerful equation that benefits the businesses and community of Southwest Detroit.

Frank Venegas Jr.
The Ideal Group, Chairman
Hispanic Manufacturing Center