NORTON — A pioneering band of 11 third-year medical students had all of Tuesday to enjoy the view from their new digs overlooking Mountain View Regional Medical Center in Norton. Beginning today, their view will be mostly focused on clinical rotations at Mountain View, Lonesome Pine Hospital in Big Stone Gap and Lee Regional Medical Center in Pennington Gap.

Wellmont Health System’s facilities in Southwest Virginia heralded a new era Tuesday with medical education in the forefront, represented by Wellmont’s new Education Center in Norton. A $250,000 overhaul of a former convent building above the Mountain View hospital provides medical students at Lincoln Memorial University’s DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (LMU-DCOM) a center of operations — in essence, a physician trainee dormitory — during clinical rotations in actual hospital settings.

Wellmont has also received approval to offer the first medical residency for LMU-DCOM students beginning next July.

Clinical rotations for third-year medical students “is not easy,” said Mountain View President David Brash. “That’s why we are providing (the Mountain View facility). Today we celebrate. Tomorrow they start work.”

Wellmont President and CEO Mike Snow said Tuesday’s ribbon cutting for the new Education Center “fits into our operating strategy for Wellmont in this region to increase the number of physicians serving this region.”

Snow said the average age of physicians in the region is 50, and the partnership with LMU-DCOM “is the first step down a path. We will be back next year when the residency program gets started full swing.”

Wellmont Director of Medical Education Dr. Maurice Nida said Tuesday’s Education Center opening establishes “a new era for Wellmont in osteopathic medicine” where students “get the best of both worlds” with training in rural hospitals as well as major health care facilities such as Holston Valley Medical Center and Bristol Regional Medical Center.

“This is wonderful for me personally,” said the longtime Wise County physician and medical examiner. “It’s not often we see a hospital during these tough economic times provide the dedication and leadership to invest in the future. Investing in these (future doctors) is investing in our future.”

Tim Scott of Toledo, Ohio, one of the 11 LMU-DCOM students to help break in the new facility, said a huge plus is the fact students can stay at the Education Center during clinical rotations “free of charge, which is a huge burden off our shoulders.”

“From day one the main thing we worry about is rotations,” Scott said. “I couldn’t be more proud to start my rotations here today.”

The students “will hit the ground running,” said Brash. “We know the DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine has prepared them well for this. This is the first day of a partnership that will have an immediate impact and a lasting impact. Our hospitals are excited to receive (the students), and we’re all excited to establish a program that will help train the next generation of doctors.”

“Our motto from the start has been growing local kids to become local doctors,” Nida said. “We consider it a privilege to work with LMU-DCOM to make that motto a reality.”

BRISTOL, Tenn. — The business of recruiting new jobs to Tennessee goes on regardless of economic conditions, Gov. Phil Bredesen said Tuesday.

“We’ve got three multibillion-dollar projects in the last nine months here. ... We’ll continue to get some good projects,” Bredesen told reporters during the launch of the state’s “Tennessee Groves” tree and flower planting initiative at the Interstate 81 welcome center.

Those projects include Volkswagen’s decision to locate in Hamilton County and Hemlock Semiconductor’s move to Montgomery County.

Bredesen recently returned from a foreign trip to Switzerland, Germany and Poland, where he was working to attract investments for a West Tennessee megasite near Brownsville.

This October, he’ll go to Japan, followed by a nine-day trade mission to China.

“I think particularly with European and Japanese businesses, they just like to see the governor. You gotta be there,” Bredesen said of the trips. “China is such a huge growing economy. ... Some of the trips might be very successful, others less successful, but it’s the sort of thing you just make a commitment to do over the years.

“I would say especially in China the presence of top officials is really important. Government and business is so intertwined in China compared to in this country.”

Despite the state’s tight budget situation, Bredesen said state government can still offer training dollars and infrastructure investments as incentives to land new employers.

“The state has never put money into a direct subsidy. We can’t do that constitutionally, and it’s just not a place we have competed,” he noted.

As for General Motors’ decision to locate a subcompact car assembly plant in Michigan rather than at GM’s facility in Spring Hill, Bredesen said the state put together a $20 million incentive package composed mainly of education and training dollars.

The governor insisted the Spring Hill plant still has a good future.

“It’s a modern plant. GM put $800 million into retooling it,” Bredesen said. “(GM officials) told me that as the industry comes back and as they start producing more cars, they’re going to need to expand capacity, and I feel confident Spring Hill will be on their short list. ... The incentive package that Michigan put on the table was something they couldn’t refuse. They asked for a great deal more money than we were willing to put forward.

“We put forward a good proposal that was comparable to things we had done for GM before. ... It obviously was not enough.”

ROGERSVILLE — The Rogersville Heritage Association finally got its contract signed with the new Hale Springs Inn innkeepers Friday, and sometime this week the new operators are expected to schedule an opening date.

Rogersville Heritage Association President Dr. Eddie Abernathy told the Times-News Sunday there are guests wanting to stay at the inn over the July 4 weekend, and efforts are in full swing to get the rooms ready.

As for the restaurant, however, the opening date is likely to be further into July, as some of the kitchen equipment on order has not arrived yet.

The mother and daughter team of Kim and Amy Cason, who signed a three-year contract Friday, will manage the nine-suite inn and the restaurant, which will be called McKinney’s.

The Casons, who are from Jefferson City, have 10 years of innkeeper experience in Gatlinburg. Chef Brad Daniels, formerly of Savannah, Ga., will serve patrons “contemporary Southern cuisine.”

“When our guests walk in the door they will be welcomed with true Southern hospitality,” Kim Cason stated in a press release issued by the RHA. “We are proud of the level of service we are able to offer.”

Negotiations between the Casons and the RHA had been ongoing for months. Thursday the two groups met to sign what was believed to be a mutually agreed upon contract when the Casons’ reportedly asked for an additional $7,000 in attorney’s fees to be paid by the RHA.

Although the RHA declined, the two groups ironed out a “compromise” — the details of which were not released publicly — and signed the contract Friday.

Attempts to contact the Casons for comment Sunday via a phone number provided by RHA were unsuccessful.

Despite the long difficult contract negotiation, Abernathy said he is very happy with the RHA’s choice of innkeepers.

“They used to run an inn in Gatlinburg and I think they will be great,” Abernathy said. “They seem to know what they’re doing, which is why we liked them to start with. They are extremely knowledgeable about how to run the inn, and they want it to be a first-class place.

“Their standard of quality is way up there, and they seem extremely competent.”

Abernathy said he anticipates knowing more about the opening schedule Monday.

“As of Friday they’re still trying to decide because some people want to come stay over the July 4 weekend, and it just depends on if they can get the rooms ready,” Abernathy said. “Maybe tomorrow (Monday) we’ll know that. It’s going to take between three and four weeks for the kitchen because there’s some equipment that is back-ordered and is not going to be in yet.

“It’ll probably be about three weeks to a month before everything is going full blast, but they may have some rooms before that.”

Renovation of the 185-year-old inn is wrapping up this month bringing to an end a six-year project. The inn closed in 1998 and was purchased by the RHA in 2003 for the purpose of renovating and reopening it.

Upon its opening McKinney’s will serve lunch and dinner. Among Chef Daniels’ specialties are scallops, tomato salad, and shrimp and grits. McKinney’s will be open Tuesday through Saturday for lunch from 11 to 2 and for dinner from 5 until 8. Brunch will be served every Sunday from 10 until 2. According to the press release, McKinney’s will offer casual fine dining and wine and beer selections will be available.

The Hale Springs Inn was built in 1824 by John McKinney to accommodate stagecoach traffic through Rogersville.

Famous guests include Presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson.

The inn is located at 110 West Main St., in the heart of Rogersville. For more information or to make room or dining reservations, call the inn at 423-272-5171 or inquire online at www.HaleSpringsInn.com.

Each year for the last 20 years, members of the United Mine Workers Association have gathered in Southwest Virginia for the union’s annual fish fry to catch up on the latest news and reminisce about old times.

At this year’s fish fry set for Sept. 26 at the Castlewood Fairgrounds, the UMWA will mark 20 years since the strike against Pittston Coal Co., and what’s been accomplished since then for organized labor across the country.

UMWA President Cecil Roberts, who was vice president and field commander during the strike, said the labor dispute served as a rallying cry for union members across the country. And the conclusion of the dispute could determine the fate of unions everywhere.

“One of the reasons we got so much help from all of organized labor was that everyone felt that this was their fight,” Roberts said. “This was a time in the country when workers, unions, were reeling.”

Unions across the country felt under siege throughout much of the 1980s. Early that decade, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization went on strike, seeking better working conditions, better pay and a 32-hour workweek. President Ronald Reagan, saying the strike was a threat to national security, ordered the striking union members back to the job. More than 11,000 air traffic controllers who didn’t return within 48 hours were fired.

The move encouraged more private companies to use their own discretion in hiring and firing employees.

“If you go back and look at this period of time when the (Pittston) strike took place, George Walker Bush was president, and that was on the heels of Ronald Reagan, who had fired the air traffic controllers. Every union that had gone on strike from that point forward had been replaced, which was something we hadn’t seen in this country since the 1930s,” Roberts said.

“It was something that became a regular occurrence — when workers went on strike, they were replaced after the air traffic controllers were fired. And workers started believing that they couldn’t win a strike.”

Church foundation

A decade before the Pittston coal strike, the UMWA — headed by then-President Sam Church — adopted policies that would help the union withstand the pressures of a prolonged labor dispute.

At the 1979 UMWA convention, Church pushed for, and the union approved, giving the union president authority to call selective strikes.

Up to then, the UMWA negotiated with the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association for contracts for union members. If a strike was called, all union members working at BCOA companies walked off the job at the same time.

In addition, Church advocated changing the way union dues were collected. Up to 1979, the union had to periodically ask for a dues increase. Church wanted to set up increases to reflect a union member’s hourly wage, so that as wages increased, dues automatically increased as well.

Church, who now lives in Pennington Gap, was unable to talk with the Times-News for this story. But his wife, Patti Church, who worked for the union back in the late 1970s, talked about her husband’s work and its impact on the Pittston coal strike.

She said the automatic dues increase and the concept of selective strikes helped the union beat the odds.

“I really didn’t understand the huge significance that those two things could play later on in the Pittston strike, but if it had not been for that dues increase to make the union more financially sound, and the ability for the selective strike, it was so significantly important to saving the union,” Patti Church said.

In 1982, Sam Church ran for reelection as UMWA president, but was defeated by Richard Trumka.

Patti Church said her husband stood side by side with Trumka and Cecil Roberts during the Pittston strike, standing up for a common cause.

For his legacy, she said Sam Church should be remembered for the groundwork he laid a decade before the Pittston strike.

“Those two important things — selective strikes and the union dues — I think history should remember him for that,” Patti Church said.

'Everyone felt that this was their fight'

Camouflage-clad men carrying homemade signs stand along the dusty road leading to the mine’s entrance, where other men and some women — also outfitted in the familiar camouflage colors — sit on the pavement blocking coal trucks from entering steel gates.

State troopers in their pressed uniforms and sharp hats tell the people to move or be moved, but the warning falls on deaf ears, as the people sing “We shall not be moved.”

Eventually, the squatters are lifted from the road, carried by police one by one to a nearby bus, and shuttled off to jail.

This was a common scene 20 years ago during the Pittston coal strike, a 10-month-long labor dispute in the mountains of Appalachia.

The United Mine Workers Association’s strike against Pittston Coal Co. began on April 5, 1989, with both sides entrenched for a long battle. Some 1,700 union members in Southwestern Virginia, Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky took to the picket lines, claiming unfair labor practices.

Benefits were at the center of the dispute — particularly healthcare for miners and retirees.

Cecil Roberts, then vice president of the UMWA and point man in the fight against Pittston, recently spoke with the Times-News about the strike and the events leading up to it.

Roberts said that in 1988, the UMWA reached a labor agreement nationwide with most of the major mining employers — except Pittston.

There, union members continued working in the mines while UMWA officials held negotiations for a new contract with the company.

After 14 months of talks and no contract, then-UMWA President Richard Trumka called a selective strike against Pittston.

Roberts said it was clear to union officials that Pittston wanted a strike instead of a new contract.

“The most convincing part of this was the fact that we worked 14 months past the expiration of the contract, and all through that 14 months we were continually bargaining with Pittston, trying to reach some kind of a compromise agreement with them and they continued to say no,” Roberts said.

“All of that was a clear indication to us that what they were hoping to do was get to a point where they could implement a last best offer that would have been devastating to the workers, broke the union at that point in time, and then they could have been free to have whatever terms and conditions of employment that they desired,” he said.

The Times-News contacted Pittston’s office in Abingdon, and was told the company would not comment on the strike.

But 20 years ago, Pittston President Mike Odom suggested the union’s mission was to “crush” the company.

“We’re up against a major union that’s got $100 million to crush us, and that’s their objective — to crush us,” Odom said at the time.

Civil disobedience

Soon after the strike began, Pittston cancelled health benefits for retirees and widows. The company said it couldn’t afford the cost, but union members saw it as a betrayal.

Union organizers rallied their troops, encouraging nonviolent tactics such as civil disobedience that was used in the civil rights movement.

Roberts said the union drew support from the local communities — not only because it used nonviolent measures — but because the company had cut off retiree healthcare, after union members had worked 14 months without a contract.

Roberts said the community viewed Pittston’s move to cut retiree healthcare as “totally unnecessary.”

“They’d taken advantage of people who had given their entire lives to the industry,” Roberts said. “People supported the fact that we were trying to do this in a nonviolent manner, that we were fighting for the healthcare of these pensioners.

“Striking miners were standing up not just for themselves, but for their fathers and uncles and grandfathers who were too old to fight for themselves.”

While many of the striking miners used nonviolent tactics in the dispute, some violence was reported, including rock throwing, vandalism, and even homemade bombs. Jack rocks — a jagged edged device designed to flatten a vehicle’s tires — were a common site along coal truck routes.

Some miners denied taking part in violent measures, saying company guards and replacement workers, called “scabs,” were distributing jack rocks along the roads to implicate striking miners.

Union members were arrested, jailed and fined. By the end of the strike, 4,000 people had been carted off by police.

Camp Solidarity

Thousands of supporters — many of them members of other unions across the country — made their way to Southwestern Virginia to stand side by side with miners on the picket lines.

But they had no place to stay.

Union supporters decided to convert a recreational area near Castlewood into a central hub, calling it Camp Solidarity. Volunteers used an existing snack bar to prepare meals for folks coming into town, and built a shelter with bunk beds where people could sleep.

A large field provided ample parking space for visitors and supporters with campers.

Shirley Hall, whose husband James Hall was among striking miners, served as one of the camp’s volunteers, who called themselves “Freedom Fighters.”

“We had like a phone bank setup and when we needed food, we would call certain people and say, ‘Hey we need you to bake a cake, or fix a pot of beans of whatever,’ and we’d pick it up the next day,” Hall said.

Organizers of Camp Solidarity assigned jobs to various volunteers. Some would get water, some would get food, and some would get firewood for the camp’s huge grill.

Everyone worked together like a well-oiled machine, striving for a common goal.

“It was unreal, the support that we had from the people, the community, the churches, other unions. It was amazing,” Hall said.

She said union supporters came to Camp Solidarity from across the country and even from around the world. Visitors arrived from as far away as Hawaii, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Scotland, and Australia.

Camp Solidarity served as a the central point for striking miners and supporters.

And each week, huge rallies with speeches and music were held in St. Paul to encourage union members.

“It was a very exciting time, and it paid off in the long run,” Shirley Hall said.

Moss 3

Several months into the strike, union officials felt they needed to plan something spectacular to rally their troops and to make the company realize they weren’t about to give up.

By that time, union members and the union itself had been fined thousands of dollars, and thousands of people had been arrested in civil disobedience demonstrations.

Union members were getting tired.

“It was the union’s opinion that there had been a lull in the activity at that time. People were getting a little despondent because there hadn’t been a lot of activity, and so the union decided that something dramatic had to occur,” Roberts said.

While the union had used the civil disobedience lessons of the civil rights movement up to then, it decided to look back further to the 1930s, to the sit-down strikes that occurred in the early days of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

“We looked at that and thought if there were someway to occupy a facility of Pittston’s and pull this off without them knowing it was coming, and keep this non-violent, then that would be a dramatic statement to Pittston that this strike wasn’t over, it wasn’t ever going to be over until there was a fair settlement that protected the workers and allowed them to return with dignity and respect, and also protected the pensioner’s healthcare and protected their income once they retired,” Roberts said.

The plan was crafted behind closed doors. Union officials told members when and where to be, but they didn’t divulge what was about to happen. Some 99 striking miners, who had volunteered to participate in whatever way they could, were selected from various parts of the strike zone, including Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

“They weren’t briefed until they got to Virginia, then they were told what was going to happen, and they were given the opportunity to back out if they wanted to, but they chose not to,” Roberts said.

When the caravans rolled in front of Pittston’s Moss 3 Preparation Plant, the 99 union members and one minister knew the mission: They would walk with hands high in the air into the plant, telling guards they were nonviolent.

Outside, union organizers gathered about 1,500 members and supporters in front of the plant. They sat in the road, blocking traffic in and out.

“Incidentally we had timed this, because we knew when the state police were changing shifts, so there wasn’t a large contingency of state troopers there at the time, so this went off without any problems,” Roberts said. “When the police arrived, we had control of the plant.”

For several days, the union occupied Moss 3, while supporters held vigil outside. At one point, as many as 5,000 union supporters had gathered in front of the plant, waving UMWA signs and cheering the men inside. Supporters traveled to the site from New York, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois and beyond, representing all different types of unions and the AFL-CIO.

“Machinists were sleeping on the ground, Teamsters came from all over. They were all willing to do whatever we wanted them to do,” Roberts said.

By Wednesday, union officials, deciding they’d made their point, ended the occupation at Moss 3. Union members who had been holed up inside the plant since Sunday marched outside, got into pickup trucks, and disappeared.

Stump to victory

By the fall of 1989, the union was facing thousands of dollars in fines — many of them imposed by Judge Donald McGlothlin Jr., Virginia circuit court judge for Russell County.

Hoping to make a statement, the union launched a grassroots political campaign to unseat McGlothlin’s father, longtime legislator Donald McGlothlin Sr., and union officials enticed UMWA District 28 President Jackie Stump to run a write-in campaign against the elder McGlothlin.

After a massive door-to-door campaign by union members, Stump defeated McGlothlin by more than a two-to-one margin.

UMWA officials viewed the election as a referendum on the strike — and they were the victors.

Government intervention

The bitter labor dispute didn’t just capture local headlines — it drew the attention of the nation. Activists including civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, Farmworkers founder Cesar Chavez, and then-AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland all traveled to the coalfields to talk with striking miners first hand.

Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole also visited strike lines, and eventually appointed former Labor Secretary William Usery to serve as special mediator between the two sides.

Usery met with union and company officials day and night to hammer out an agreement. A settlement was announced in early 1990, and was later ratified by UMWA members.

After the strike ended, the Supreme Court threw out most of the fines that had been imposed by the state judges. However, union officials were ordered to participate in 10,000 hours of community service activities.

For his part, Roberts said he and some other union representatives traveled to Lee County and worked alongside U.S. District Judge Glen Williams — who had imposed some of those fines against the union — to help clean up a river.

“I think Judge Williams — we can’t say we liked every decision he made, but we all had respect for him at the end of the day. It was very good day for all of us,” Roberts recalled.

In Washington, lawmakers passed the Coal Act, guaranteeing healthcare for all union pensioners. That law, Roberts said, was a direct result of the Pittston strike.

Roberts said the strike was important to the union on several fronts.

“I think had Pittston prevailed here, I think we would have seen the failure of our pension plans for one thing,” Roberts said. “The second thing, I think the pensioners’ healthcare would have collapsed not only at Pittston but everywhere.”

He said lots of “good things came out of that strike.”

“I still believe it’s probably the most effective strike that’s taken place in at least the last 50 years and maybe longer,” Roberts said.

SPRING HILL, Tenn. — Workers at General Motors’ soon-to-be-idled assembly plant in Tennessee held out hope for a reprieve, but now it’s back to the waiting game.

GM’s decision Friday to build a new small car at a Michigan plant allowed that economically battered state to rejoice, while the announcement is likely a death knell for the third of the finalists in Janesville, Wis.

Officials in Tennessee now hope that the Spring Hill plant on the outskirts of Nashville will be assigned a new product before it is mothballed.

Maury County Mayor James Bailey said he was frustrated that all the work state and local officials have done to help develop the plant over the decades appears to “have been tossed aside and forgotten.”

“The Spring Hill facility has been sacrificed, and its future has been put in jeopardy,” Bailey said.

Mike Herron, chairman of United Auto Workers Local 1853, said Spring Hill was the only plant that could have built the new car without any investment.

“It’s not like we have an old facility with dilapidated equipment and a work force that won’t do anything,” he said.

Michigan, Wisconsin and Tennessee all offered incentives to General Motors Corp. to lure the plant, but neither the automaker nor state officials disclosed details about the incentive packages.

“All three states made very attractive offers,” Troy Clarke, GM’s president for North America, said in a conference call with reporters. “The folks in Michigan were very creative and brought a whole package.”

The company said it would use an idled midsize car plant in Orion Township, about 40 miles north of Detroit, to assemble small and compact cars, including a subcompact model based on the Chevrolet Spark that is set to go on sale in Europe next year.

GM said it expects to start retooling in late 2010 and run two shifts at the plant by 2011, producing 160,000 vehicles annually. The move will save 1,200 jobs at Orion, plus 200 more at a nearby parts stamping plant.

Clarke said the retooling would cost the company $600 million to $800 million.

Herron said recent investments in the Spring Hill plant, which was originally built to make Saturns, approached $1 billion. GM retooled the plant to begin making the Chevrolet Traverse crossover vehicle in October, and the automaker installed a new paint shop and steel stamping operations.

“This is a site that has it all,” Herron said. “It’s the one site in America where you can come in and roll raw materials in the front door and roll finished product out the back.”

Herron said he had no information on whether the plant could be sold to companies buying the brands GM is shedding in bankruptcy protection, like Saturn or Hummer.

Tennessee has been a recent hotbed of automobile industry activity. Germany’s Volkswagen AG is building a $1 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga, and Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. this week secured a $1.6 billion federal loan to build electric cars and battery packs to power them at its Tennessee assembly complex.

In Wisconsin, officials are left to discuss options for the GM-owned plant and its 4 million square feet of space.

The plant is technically on “stand by” status and GM might bring production back in 2011 if business improves, said Douglas Venable, Janesville’s economic development director, but city officials may encourage the automaker to sell so other businesses can bring in jobs.

“The uncertainty is the difficult part,” Venable said. “At some point families have to decide what they’re going to do, if they’re going to transfer elsewhere. And the business community, it’s hard for them to make investments not knowing if GM is staying or going.”

One former autoworker, 47-year-old Vicki Sathre of Janesville, said she had hoped GM would reopen the plant but suspected the stamping facilities near the Michigan site made it a more logical choice.

Sathre, who took a $20,000 buyout in April after 12 years at the plant, said she doesn’t put much stock in GM’s claims that it might reopen the Janesville site if demand for vehicles improves.

“You can’t live on a wish and a dream,” said Sathre, who is studying to become a dental assistant.

Spring Hill officials expect about 500 of the plant’s 3,000 workers to stay on the job doing engine, stamping and plastic work after Traverse production ends around Thanksgiving.

Friday’s decision could encourage more workers to take buyout of early retirement offers by the end of next month, Herron said.

But Bernard Burns, 60, who has worked at the Spring Hill plant since 1991, said retirement isn’t an option for him. Burns said his 14-year-old son has recently undergone cancer treatments and he doesn’t want to lose his family’s health benefits.

“Hopefully I’ll have enough seniority” to remain at the plant, he said. “But you have to go where the money is.”

LEBANON — At the conclusion of two decades as Southwest Virginia’s economic development engine, the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority looks back on $117 million in funding for more than 200 regional projects to help bring nearly 12,000 jobs to the region.

“In these 20 years VCEDA has had a hand in helping to bring more than $2 billion in announced investments to the region, including new opportunities in information technology, manufacturing, energy and other basic job-creating operations,” Jonathan Belcher, VCEDA executive director, told the board of directors during the board’s most recent meeting in Lebanon.

Belcher outlined economic development highlights for each of the seven coal-producing counties of Virginia, including the 3,000-acre Southern Gap Business Park in Buchanan County due for a ribbon cutting later this year for its first business occupant. That occupant is information technology support center Sykes Enterprises — operator of a similar facility in Wise County — which will bring 400 jobs to the region.

VCEDA’s primary direction in recent years is promotion of its “Virginia e-Region” strategy to focus on key competitive advantages of the region in electronic information technology, energy, education and emerging technologies.

Former Gov. Gerald Baliles, who signed the legislation approved by the Virginia General Assembly two decades ago to create VCEDA, also addressed the board and said regions need to recognize weaknesses in order to build on strengths.

“Business executives have choices about where to locate their companies,” Baliles said. “It’s important for a region to know your vulnerabilities so you can improve your strengths and show prospects the quality of your work force.”

Former Delegate Ford C. Quillen of Scott County introduced the enacting legislation in 1988 to create VCEDA. He said regional cooperation was a winning strategy in Richmond.

“We needed to do more for ourselves in economic development in Southwest Virginia, and we needed to provide a funding source to help the counties work together to attract industry and jobs,” Quillen said.

The legislation set aside funding from severance taxes from the coal and natural gas industries to give VCEDA the resources needed to make low-interest loans or grants to help the counties and city of Norton diversify the economy and attract jobs to the region.

“Looking back, having the money earmarked for economic development has served the purpose,” Quillen said.

Alpha Natural Resources CEO Mike Quillen, the first chairman of VCEDA now serving as treasurer, said the authority has been “very diligent in how the funds are distributed” for projects throughout the region.

“VCEDA is unique, and it gives our region a benefit that no other part of the commonwealth has,” he said.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A decision by General Motors to build its new small car in Michigan leaves about 2,500 employees at the company’s Spring Hill plant facing unemployment.

A person briefed on the decision said Thursday that GM will build its new subcompact car in Orion Township, Mich.

UAW Local 1853 spokesman Todd Horton in Spring Hill said “no one is going to comment until we get the official announcement.” He said a news conference would be held Friday morning at the UAW union hall in Spring Hill to discuss employees’ futures.

The Spring Hill plant recently underwent a more than $600 million overhaul to build the Chevrolet Traverse crossover. Before it was identified as one of three facilities competing for production of the new small car, it was scheduled to go on standby later this year.

“I am going to remain optimistic,” said Cliff Goff, 53, a longtime employee at Spring Hill who has worked for GM since 1975. “I am a person who believes you have got a great work force. You have a great plant. General Motors is separating the bad GM from the good and reinventing themselves and looking for a new path to take. I would think they understand they have a valuable asset there.”

He said in a telephone interview that a “decision to do nothing with that plant would have a serious impact on our workers and our community.”

City Administrator Jim Smith said Thursday evening that the town is “down but not out. It’ll slow us down in the short run, but this plant is extremely viable. I anticipate we’ll be making cars here again.”

Gov. Phil Bredesen’s spokeswoman, Lydia Lenker, said late Thursday that their office had not been notified of GM’s decision.

Bredesen hours earlier said Tennessee’s bid to get Spring Hill selected was “nothing like” what the bankrupt automaker had originally sought. The governor told reporters earlier this month that his impression from meetings with GM officials was that the company wanted a large cash payment and not long-term tax incentives.

Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, Tennessee’s two U.S. senators, did not respond for comment Thursday.

GM announced when it filed for bankruptcy protection June 1 that the Orion Township and Spring Hill plants would go on standby status later this year, meaning workers could be called back if the company needs to increase production. The other plant competing for the small car work, Janesville, Wis., already closed in April.

Employees in Spring Hill are facing the uncertainty two decades after GM launched Saturn as its import-fighting, small car division in Tennessee.

GM built the Spring Hill facility to make sure Saturn wasn’t too heavily influenced by Detroit. They billed it as a “different kind of car company,” with a no-haggle sales technique and buyer loyalty gimmicks like the folksy homecoming picnics that drew owners to the Tennessee plant site. Initially, Saturn was a separate division of GM.

The separation was short-lived, though, and GM soon absorbed the Saturn leadership back into its headquarters.

Just two years ago, after GM made a failed attempt to go upscale with bigger Saturns, the Spring Hill plant about 40 miles south of Nashville lost the brand. GM has announced the sale of the Saturn brand to auto racing titan Roger Penske’s Penske Automotive Group Inc., which plans to continue selling GM-made vehicles but eventually partner with foreign carmakers.

Since an overhaul of the Spring Hill plant, spurred partly by state tax credits, workers there have been building the eight-seat Chevrolet Traverse.

GM is planning a new subcompact to compete with foreign models and has decided to build it in the U.S. instead of China. (AP)