CANTON - For Mississippi lawmakers, the 3.5 million-square-foot Nissan assembly plant that opens May 27 represents a big chunk of the state's economic future.
For Nissan North America Inc., the sprawling white factory is a $1.4 billion gamble the Japanese automaker can grab a share of the lucrative full-size truck market and greatly increase its overall U.S. market share.
But for Rufus O'Banner - Yazoo City native and father of two - the state's first auto assembly plant means he can finally get eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. That he has time to teach his six-year-old daughter, Shavondra, to ride a bike and money to take Shavondra and her 11-year-old brother, Yaris, on their first trip to Disney World this summer.
And that for the first time in his 34 years, O'Banner is the envy of his friends and even of total strangers in his home state.
What O'Banner got that so changed his life - and what more than 87,000 other people in Mississippi have so coveted - is a job. A job paying $13.35 an hour with regular raises to $21, a job with an employer whose massive investment in the state offers hope for a secure future.
"Now that I'm hired with Nissan, it's like I'm a celebrity because people come up and say, 'What do I have to do to get on there?"' said O'Banner, who speaks softly, but can't stop grinning broadly when he talks about his job in the plant's paint shop as "sort of a robot tender."
In a state that lost a record number of manufacturing jobs last year - Mississippians who snare a job at Nissan's Canton plant feel blessed.
Nissan fostered that feeling, by simply advertising it has as many as 5,300 well-paying jobs and by stretching the hiring process over more than two years and being very finicky about who it hires.
O'Banner and the 1,587 employees hired so far are being asked to be a part of a team that will turn out 400,000 vehicles a year when the plant reaches full production next year. This group - representing 70 of Mississippi's 82 counties - are being asked to beat the industry-leading production efficiency of Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn. plants.
"The skill level of the workers and the drive of the workers will be critical to how smooth the operations run," said Michael Flynn, director of the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation.
O'Banner and his fellow workers, of which there will be 1,900 when the plant opens May 27, were chosen for their stable work history, positive attitudes and willingness to be a Nissan team player. Thursday evenings, new hires are greeted by Dave Boyer, plant manager and manufacturing vice president, who talks to them about "creating a dream."
"We want people to buy into the Nissan dream that we can make a difference in Mississippi and produce the highest quality vehicles in North America," said Galen Medlin, the plant's human resources director.
O'Banner had been working two jobs - full time for a Flora injection molding company and part time for UPS - and felt sleepy all the time. He applied at Nissan in June 2001 and, a year later, was tapped to undergo six weeks of unpaid pre-employment training, with no guarantee Nissan would hire him.
Then, after a month in which he checked his caller ID "a million times," O'Banner got the call he was waiting for.
"I went to hollering and then calling my kids," he said. "I knew it was a long shot that I would get this job. Now, it's amazing how I can come to one job and get all the pay and benefits I need and can go home and play with my kids. So, now, when you say 'Nissan,' that's me."
Greenville resident Belinda Owens worked 19 years for telephone equipment maker Marconi and had topped out at $12.78 an hour. Despite the hour-and-a-half commute to Canton, Owens applied at Nissan in January, lured by the chance to earn more money and gain more skills.
The day she was hired a few weeks later, the Marconi plant announced it would close, laying of its 121 workers. Now, Owens works in Nissan's trim and chassis shop at the plant and is hoping two of her three sons will get their wish and be hired there, too. Her two brothers and her best friend have also applied at the plant.
"Try home first because now you don't have to leave the state to get a better job," Owens said.
In 2001, Ocean Springs resident Robert Collins was 48 and a 21-year veteran of International Paper Co.'s Moss Point mill that was laying off workers and shutting down for long periods. Guessing the mill would soon close, Collins applied to be one of the 185 maintenance technicians who tend Nissan's 853 robots and keep the assembly line running smoothly at a starting wage of $19.55 an hour.
The Moss Point mill shut down in June 2001. Collins got hired at Nissan two weeks later. The father of two and grandfather of three moved his wife and daughter to a Jackson apartment, leaving a grown son and three grandchildren behind in Ocean Springs.
Today, Collins is building a new home in Jackson. He's bought his 18-year-old daughter, LaShondra, a University of Southern Mississippi nursing student, a new Nissan Sentra.
He misses his grandchildren, but hopes his 23-year-old son,
Shawn, will get hired at Nissan, too.
"It was hard leaving the grandkids," Collins said. "But because of Nissan, my children and my grandchildren have a choice about where to work."
Ridgeland resident Nick Crawford, 38, wanted a Nissan job so badly he took a part-time job as a pre-employment trainer. For a year, he trained Nissan prospective employees - and bought a 1984 Nissan pickup, feeling somehow that might help his chances.
Nissan hired the married father of two teenagers in September 2002 as a training technician at the plant.
Copyright 2002, Associated Press. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
