Mercedes-Benz Officially Opens Facilityin Jacksonville, FLMercedes-Benz USA September 8held a grand-opening ceremony for anew cutting-edge facility in Jack-sonville, Florida. Strategically locatedless than three miles from the Jack-sonville airport, the new Southern Re-gion facility centralizes severalbusiness units into one complex formore efficient dealer support and cor-respondingly higher levels of cus-tomer satisfaction.

The recently constructed buildingtotaling a combined 415,000 sq. ft., isa leased facility built to accommodateMBUSA’s needs. It is located off In-terstate 95 at 13470 International

Parkway. MBUSA took official occu-pancy in July with four business unitsoperating from the site including:Sales Operations Southern RegionalOffice; Parts Distribution Center(PDC); Quality Evaluation Center(QEC); and Learning & PerformanceCenter (LPC). Approximately 160employees work at the new facility,which incorporates innovative envi-ronmental systems and design usingthe same criteria as LEED certifiedbuildings within each of the four busi-ness areas.

“This new facility is an integral

NACE’s 2010 keynote speaker KellyMcDonald—a recognized expert onmulticultural marketing and businesstrends and a former dealership sales ex-ecutive—will address increasing diver-sity in the workplace and a changing

workforce and cus-tomer base duringthe Opening Gen-eral Session. Spon-sored by DuPont,from 8:30–10 AMon Monday, Octo-ber 11, followedimmediately by theopening of theNACE and CARS

show floor. McDonald will address thevast array of differences in the work-

force these days and how businessescan work cohesively with their cus-tomer base, their employees and theirlabor force as a whole.

“The consumer really has thepower of choice,” McDonald told Au-tobody News. She detailed how con-sumers have so much choice andinformation available to them onlinethat businesses really need to cater toa customers needs, preferences andstyles to win their business.

For businesses, the bar is sethigher than ever and the customer isfully in charge: they have specific ex-pectations about service, convenienceand communication. The multilingualneeds of our country are more appar-

NACE/CARS Offers Array of Speakers

See NACE, Page 13

JOB DESCRIPTION—● Run California’s largest consumer protection agency● Oversee more than 1,500 insurers with 300,000 workers● Control a tenth of our largest state’s economy

TASKS REQUIRED—● Manage 1300 employees with a $200 million budget● Field 300,000 consumer assistance calls annually● Handle more than 35,000 consumer complaints● Issue 170,000 agents/brokers licenses● Investigate 24,000 suspected fraudulent referrals● Initiate about 1,000 arrests annually● Recover more than $48 million per year for consumers

FULL TIME POSITION, LONG HOURS—● Requires election by voters of California● Need to know plenty about collision repair

Who is AssemblymanDAVE JONESand why does he want to be California’s nextInsurance Commissioner?

INTERVIEW by Ed Attanasio

NACE keynotespeaker, Kelly

McDonald

see www.autobodynews.com

SeeMercedes, Page 7

VOL. 1 ISSUE 8OCTOBER 2010

P.O.BOX1400,OCEANSIDE,CA92051-1400

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