Mapping Out a Move
The scene: a shuttle bus sloshing through rain-drenched south Orange County. Inside, 20 Lincoln Mercury employees and spouses from Detroit listen as a real estate broker ticks off advantages to living in this sunshine state. Fogged-up windows block views of Coto de Caza, where, they are told, $180,000 will buy them a 650-square-foot condo. Some of them have bigger basements.
Distribution analyst Nancy Johnson, with a drawl: “It reminds me of Atlanta, but we had yards.”
Mike Studdard, head of Lincoln Mercury’s relocation: “Those have yards.”
Johnson: “Did I blink and miss them?”
The bus fills with laughter. A guy jokes about riding lawn mowers.
Studdard: “They’re yards, they’re just low-maintenance.”
By Monday--one month since Lincoln Mercury announced it was moving to Irvine--150 employees from the world capital of autos must decide. Will they chuck Motor City, home to the brick Colonial, actual seasons and the womb of their industry, for the Southern California siren call of year-round golf, palm trees and Spanish-style stucco?
For this bold gamble to boost drooping sales by transplanting the division’s headquarters from Detroit, most workers will take the plunge. Those who will not largely cite personal, not professional, reasons for staying behind at the Dearborn mother ship, where they will be given new jobs.
As with any move, choices come hard and change promises risk. Can they trade down on private space for the promise of career growth? What of dependents--young children, some of whom might have to make cross-country custody visits, and elderly parents? Will Orange County schools be diverse enough? Safe enough? Will their standard of living rise or fall? Will they be subjected to Mello-Roos fees, biblical floods and televised car chases?
“I’m all for moving if my husband can find a job,” said Sandy Connor, a lifelong Michigan resident who coordinates field operation communications with Lincoln Mercury’s 17 U.S. regional offices. Her spouse frets about California’s twin E’s, though: “He’s kind of concerned about earthquakes and now, of course, El Nino.”
Over four days with these employees last weekend--at their suburban Michigan homes and their downtown high-rise office, riding along on their California scouting trip--some answers emerged as they considered what may be the biggest change of their lives.
First to Break With ‘Motor City’
In a radical move that made front-page headlines in both states, the Lincoln Mercury division of Ford Motor declared Jan. 22 that it will move its world headquarters for sales, marketing and product design to the Irvine Spectrum by year’s end.
While most of the globe’s auto makers have design studios in Southern California, Ford is the first of the so-called Big Three American motor companies to break with Detroit, which is dubbed “Motor City” for a reason. One in eight Michigan workers is employed in the transportation industry, which includes the Big Three motor companies and auto suppliers. A giant neon tire decorates Interstate 94 leading out of town. Industrial plants of Chrysler, General Motors and Ford dot the landscape for miles around.
All of the three dozen Lincoln Mercury workers interviewed thought it smart for the company to relocate to California--the largest car and truck purchasing state in the union, with 26 million vehicles registered last year. The company hopes to jump-start lackluster sales of its Lincoln and Mercury brands by moving its creative hive to a trend-setting region known for dreaming up the large tail fin in the 1950s and, in recent years, the minivan and sport-utility vehicle.
Lincoln Mercury believes that inspiration will bloom in the land of car-as-personal-statement, where imports dominate and vehicles can endure for decades rust-free.
Still, the car universe of Michigan was floored by news that Ford would move a division outside Detroit. The governor did some hand-wringing. The Detroit News ran five stories the first day. Lincoln Mercury vehicles still will be built in Michigan, where most industry observers viewed the local impact as negligible. But the symbolism was disconcerting to some.
Such a shake-up is exactly what the company needs, said Jim Rogers, general marketing manager.
“We’re like the 45-year-old kid who still lives at home,” Rogers said. “It’s time to move out on our own.”
Weighing Cost, Standard of Living
Newcomers admit their stereotypes abound of sunny, hang-loose Southern California--”Is everyone really gorgeous there and blond?” one asked. But in fact, most Lincoln Mercury employees are professionals who drive at least half an hour from tidy, upper-middle-class enclaves such as Grosse Pointe or Birmingham to work downtown at the gleaming towers called the Renaissance Center overlooking the Detroit River.
Their salaries range from the low $30,000s to six figures, and that affords them the distance from big city life in Detroit that vast Southern California bedroom communities also offer.
Already, they rarely commute by public transportation. Taxes, they say, work out about the same. Heating bills will be lower here; mortgages surely will be higher.
“I won’t have to wear a topcoat and I can drive a convertible,” said John Csernotta, head of merchandising and promotions, which include Ladies Professional Golf Assn. and professional cycling events. He and his wife, a hospital administrator, have lived in Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit.
“I figure our house will shrink and our cost of living will go up about 10%. But the company will help compensate for that.”
Lincoln Mercury has dropped the dough to accomplish its move with as many employees as possible. Two jets full of workers and spouses have been flown to Orange County the last two weekends to help them decide whether they can move. Even career Ford executives with eight or 10 relocations under their belts say this en masse transplant is rather remarkable.
“We figured the cost of the two trips out here at about $150,000,” said Pam Johnson, director of the Associates, the relocation firm overseeing the move. “It’s a lot of money.”
Two weeks after the stunning announcement, 200 Detroit-based employees and their families were feted at a California orientation night at the Dearborn Ritz-Carlton. A member of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce was flown in. Concern No. 1: How will this move from the Ford nucleus affect my career? Most ascending the corporate ladder move around every few years, but not so far from the center. Could they come back?
They would have exactly a month to find their answers.
Impressions Both Good and Bad
Three weeks and a day after the announcement, 45 employees and their spouses were aboard a Ford jet bound for John Wayne Airport. A few had never seen the Pacific Ocean. Child-care expenses back home were paid through the weekend. Private coaches and a band playing “California, Here We Come” met them on the tarmac. There was a cocktail reception and food that night at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel.
The next morning, vans carried them 120 miles through Irvine industrial parks and look-alike ranges of planned communities from Lake Forest to Mission Viejo and Dove Canyon. Each van had its own real estate broker, who offered details on Mello-Roos assessment districts, country club fees, homeowner association dues and the fact that school busing comes out of a parent’s pocket here.
A three-course lunch overlooking the Dana Point Harbor broke up the rainy caravan. Expressions of sticker shock and impressions good and bad were exchanged.
Brad and Le Munn of Ann Arbor have lived in Northern California, where Le was a teacher. They have twin 9-year-old daughters with learning disabilities, and they have struggled in Michigan to get the right help.
“The schools here are more progressive for our needs,” Le said over lunch. “I think in the Midwest, people are more inclined to think what you can’t do. In California, people have said, ‘What can we do for you?’ ”
Lincoln Mercury’s John Douveas, who has lived in both Huntington Beach and Detroit, theorized why. Michigan’s auto industry, its assembly lines, demand standardization.
“You are supposed to do everything the same way,” he said. “That is the goal.”
Of the exceedingly decorated seven model homes they visited in Rancho Santa Margarita (bedroom and closet doors removed, silk bouquets galore), the two cheapest were already sold out. The smallest available was 2,541 square feet for a starting price of $286,000. Though many of the Michiganians nodded admiringly, more than a few looked stricken, muttering, “This is mid-300s?” or “These houses all look alike!”
By midafternoon, the rain-depressed Detroit employees returned to their hotel. They seemed cheered later by conversations with two Irvine Unified School District officials and Detroit transplant Linda Clinard of the UC Irvine education department.
“My wife, Linda, and I moved out here in 1988 from Detroit,” said John Clinard, Ford’s head of western region public affairs. “We got half the size of our lot in Michigan for twice the price, but I’ve been telling people: My standard of living went down and my quality of living went up.”
On Friday, another 40 or so Lincoln Mercury employees arrived from Detroit for the company’s second weekend orientation. Among them were Sandy Connor and her husband.
Being avid golfers, they are excited about a warmer climate. And Connor has already got the freeway lexicon down.
“I’ve already been told,” she said with a grin, “that it’s not ‘the I-5,’ it’s ‘the 5.’ ”
As a two-time breast cancer survivor, Connor says health considerations factor heavily. Consulting with her doctor about estrogen therapy, which she says is considered radical in her area, “my oncologist said there’s a doctor at UCI Medical Center who is a leading proponent and just had a paper published about it.”
Anne Doyle will be staying put. The daughter of longtime sportscaster Vince Doyle, Anne has a nine-acre horse ranch in Auburn Hills and a son who just turned 6. As Lincoln Mercury’s public affairs manager, she would be involved at a heady time for the company. She lived in Santa Monica during the ‘70s and worked in TV news, public relations and the women’s movement. She remembers the electricity one can feel in L.A.
As a girl, she would gaze at planes crossing the Midwestern sky and wonder where they were going. As an Angeleno, she said to herself, “They are coming here.”
She could rent her ranch and stables. But she is a single mom whose son would suffer by being across country from his father.
During the hectic days after the announcement of the move, Doyle’s mother stayed at the house and pitched in. “I admire Anne so much,” she said, trudging through the snow to feed carrots to horses Winchester and Dorita while Doyle read bedtime stories to her boy.
“She had to meet deadlines and get the information out about the move and put her personal life and her own choices aside. She did it because she’s a professional,” she added later while cleaning up dinner dishes, “but it was not easy on her. Part of her wants to go.”
Joe Ghedotte, Lincoln Mercury’s advanced products marketing manager, thinks the company move is exciting, but he can’t make it. Usually, a Ford move is a promotion, Ghedotte said. This one would be lateral. The cost of living would probably increase. His wife, a regional manager for a large hotel chain, would take a career hit. His son, 13, would move easily, but his daughter, 17, is another story.
“She has real trouble with change,” he said with a smile and shrug. “My wife changed our Christmas decorations one year and it really threw her.”
Optimism Amid Difficult Decisions
Decisions must be reported to Lincoln Mercury by the end of Monday. Mary Williams made up her mind early. She is excited about moving, though she has some requirements prioritized.
For the single mother, custody visits will be about the same distance because her former husband lives in Texas. As owner of a roomy home in West Bloomfield, she hopes to buy at least a four-bedroom house here. As an African American woman, she will want to find a neighborhood with excellent, diverse schools for her son.
At first, her 8-year-old son cried at the possibility of moving. Williams, involved with advertising for Mercury and in charge of ethnic marketing for both brands, did not push. She let him consider the idea and expressed her own questions.
After he watched the Super Bowl set in sunny San Diego, he came around. They should go live in California.
“I let him think it was his idea,” Williams said, smiling at the view from Ford’s cafeteria of the shimmering Detroit River. “You only raise a child once, and nothing comes before that but God. But I think it’s going to be good.”
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Nancy Wride can be reached at (714) 966-5985. Her e-mail address is nancy.wride@latimes.com
