At the same time, Mr. Nickel, head of international business at Nimak, was trying to find a hotel near Tuscaloosa, Ala., where has was traveling the next morning to visit the plant of another German automaker, Mercedes-Benz.
“Atlanta is in the middle,” Mr. Nickel said of his customer base in the Southeast U.S.
After spending the last two years with the company in China, Mr. Nickel plans to move to Atlanta this year to supervise the installation of customized welding robots at the VW plant and to oversee service for machines at the Mercedes-Benz factory. Nimak, founded by Mr. Nickel’s grandfather in 1965, will install about 400 welding robots at the VW plant. It installed 800 machines at the Mercedes-Benz plant.
Atlanta’s strategic location between the two German auto plants means Nimak will open a permanent office in Atlanta this year, he told GlobalAtlanta.
“There will be the main sales organization and the financial secretary in Atlanta,” he said. “This location allows us to react fast and to meet every customer.”
Mr. Stahl, a partner with Arnall, Golden Gregory LLP, has been steadily building a client base of European scompanies that are suppliers to the auto manufacturers in the Southeast.
A native of Germany who speaks German fluently, he now represents more than 50 companies from Europe, including a dozen that are suppliers to the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga or are seeking contracts there.
“I think we now unquestionably have an automotive and engineering technology cluster that really cements our region's position as a viable alternative to Detroit,” Mr. Stahl told GlobalAtlanta in an interview late last year.
Mr. Stahl maintains a frenetic travel pace, attending trade shows in Europe and calling on auto suppliers face-to-face at their headquarters.
“I'm flying to Germany, Austria, Switzerland on Wednesday,” he wrote in a recent e-mail interview.
Source: www.globalatlanta.com
Author: David Beasley
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