Georgia officials beamed Southern hospitality during a formal welcoming ceremony at the state Capitol Tuesday for Mercedes-Benz USA LLC including Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul whose city has been chosen as the site for the company’s U.S. headquarters.
“Sandy Springs has thought of itself as the Mercedes of cities,” the mayor quipped. “Now we are really going from the metaphorical to the literal.”
Mercedes-Benz’s president and CEO, Stephen Cannon, said that the location on Abernathy Road near Ga. 400 in Sandy Springs would be ideal because of its midway location between the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and the port of Savannah.
Construction of the new headquarters is to be completed in 2017. Until then, the company will be lodged at a temporary space in the Perimeter area.
In his opening comments, Gov. Nathan Deal praised the coordinated efforts of officials from the state’s department of economic development, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Fulton County and Sandy Springs in attracting the quintessentially German automaker’s U.S. headquarters.
Mr. Paul couldn’t resist mentioning that Sandy Springs also is the location for the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies including United Parcel Service Inc., Newell Rubbermaid Inc. and First Data Corp. as well as a half dozen other major firms.
But Mr. Cannon’s announcement that a human resources office opened Tuesday is most likely the most welcome news for future Mercedes-Benz employees from this region.
A website at www.mbatlantacareers.com also was launched on Tuesday announcing that the official opening of the headquarters is not to occur until July.
The website encourages applicants to enter contact information including their years of experience, highest degree earned and preferred job from a wide ranging list that begins with accounting and ends with vehicle logistics and distribution.
To learn more about Mercedes-Benz’s culture, prospective employees are encouraged to visit mbusa.com/careers.
Donna Boland, department manager in the current corporate communications office in Montvale, N.J. headquarters, told Global Atlanta that the number of the 1,000 company employees from the New Jersey area who would transfer to Atlanta was still undetermined. She estimated that at least 40-to-50 percent would make the move.
She also said that there would have to be a transition period since some of the New Jersey operations such as its call center were highly sophisticated requiring especially careful management during a move.
In closing, Mr. Cannon gave to Mr. Deal a model of its S-Class Sedan, which he called the company’s “flagship,” and promised that the company “will grow here.”
Numerous state legislators and local officials attended the news briefing. Global Atlanta caught up with Richard Walker, president and CEO of the Georgia Automotive Manufactures Association Inc., which was founded to provide interaction among automotive companies in the state.
Kevin Glass, headmaster of the Atlanta International School, also attended the briefing. He told Global Atlanta that the school should be attractive to the Mercedes executives from Germany with small children because it has an early learning center which offers immersion classes for 3-to-4-year-old children whose native language is German, French or Spanish.
He added that the use of a mother-tongue in a school setting enhances the children’s skills in their own native language before they begin a formal study of English, and that Mercedes-Benz officials had toured the school on behalf of their German executives with small children who would be living in Atlanta.
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