When Indian carmaker Mahindra asked Rick Haas to establish a new, global engineering facility to help the company accelerate the design and engineering of the next generation of world-class vehicles for global markets, the location for the center was a topic of much debate.
For the two years prior, Haas had been leading the engineering and product development team at Mahindra’s Chennai (India)-based product development center. Both he and Mahindra leadership knew the time had come to set up a global product development center in a hub of industry innovation and technology — one with an abundance of automotive engineering talent and a world-class infrastructure. Haas and Mahindra ultimately chose Southeastern Michigan.
Haas recalls, “We took a hard look at a number of different locations: Tokyo, Seoul, Stuttgart, Turin, the U.K. and even the San Francisco area, but in the end we decided that there was simply no location that could equal the automotive resources, intellect or talent pool of Michigan.”
The location was chosen in large part for its proximity to young talent. Many of the top engineering schools are located in Southeast Michigan. These colleges and universities offer automotive-centric curriculums to support the development and implementation of new technologies and promote constant learning, which is essential to keeping up with today’s rapidly moving tech climate. All this equates to the region grooming many of the best auto-specific engineers on the planet.
Consistent support provided to Mahindra by both state and local development authorities was another key deciding factor, as was Southeast Michigan’s exceptional automotive infrastructure.
“The whole industry plays here,” Haas said. “The Environmental Protection Agency has offices here; there are full-service supplier tech centers, proving grounds, crash facilities and wind tunnels all available within a radius of less than 50 miles.”
For all of these reasons, Mahindra North American Technical Center (MNATC) was established in Troy, Mich. in 2013.
The team at MNATC is comprised of over 100 top-tier engineers — each averaging more than20 years of experience working for companies like Apple Inc., Boeing Co., Tesla Motors Inc., Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., General Motors Co., and Toyota Motor Corp. They leverage the latest communication and data sharing technologies to take full advantage of Mahindra’s Global Product Development presence.
And because Mahindra’s auto engineering facilities are located across the globe, the lights are rarely off at MNATC. At any given hour, the MNATC team could be working on new vehicle programs with affiliate centers in Italy, India or South Korea.
“Effective collaboration is at the core of everything we do at MNATC,” Haas says, “so hiring exceptional engineers who are also great team players with a global perspective may very well be our top priority.”
As for Haas, he’s now back where it all started for him. Born in Detroit, he grew up in the suburb of Livonia and received both his engineering degree and MBA from the University of Michigan.
A lifelong engineer, Haas has been active in the auto industry since 1981 when he joined Ford Motor Co. right after college graduation. Since the early 2000s, Haas had been moving around the globe — from Brazil to California to India — developing products for different automakers, but he couldn’t be happier to be “home.”
“It’s great to finally be back in town and be able to contribute in a very meaningful way to the resurgence of the Detroit area and the revival of the local auto industry,” he said. “Anyone in this industry will tell you these are exciting times, and I can’t help but be proud of the huge role the engineering community is playing in driving innovation and advanced technologies into new vehicles worldwide. We are on the cusp of a very different transportation model both in this country and abroad.”
|