Ford announces major expansion to Cleveland Engine Plant 10 Gallery: Ford announces major expansion to Cleveland Engine Plant

BROOK PARK, Ohio -- Joe Hinrichs was beaming. It's the sort of news that every automotive executive wants to share - $200 million in new investments, 450 jobs, a new engine line that should make Ford's Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 an essential part of the company's future.

From the audience, Tim Levandusky nodded and clapped along with the crowd. Levandusky, a United Auto Workers official, smiled but said nothing. He didn't want to share his feelings about the announcement, but the weight of history was obvious.

The last time Hinrichs made a big speech about Brook Park's future was six years ago when he said Ford would close the site's biggest plant and temporarily shutter Engine Plant No. 1, the very plant that will get the work announced Thursday. Levandusky was president of the UAW Local 1250 back then.

He's with the union's regional office in Toledo now, and he still makes regular visits to his old plant. Brook Park workers joked and laughed with him after the formal announcement that Ford would make its 2-liter EcoBoost engine at the plant. Ford now makes that engine in Valencia, Spain.

If all goes well, employment at Brook Park's Ford could hit 1,800 in a few years, up from 1,065. When Hinrichs last spoke about the plants near Cleveland's airport, they had more than 2,600 people.

Hinrichs, a native of Fostoria south of Toledo, remembers how painful that day was.

Earlier coverage and reader comments

Telling workers that Ford was closing the Cleveland Casting Plant and shutting down Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 for what turned out to be two years was heartbreaking.

"As difficult as it was when we heard all of the announcements and took those restructuring actions, we're seeing the results of that now," Hinrichs said. Ford has gone from losing billions every year to becoming one of the most profitable automakers in the world. "That's the most exciting part about this for me personally. The things we did are paying dividends now. So now, it's all about growth."

Growth, but not a return to former glory.

In its heyday, Brook Park's three-plant campus employed more than 16,000 people every day. Improvements in productivity and automation ate into that over the years, and the plant closures accelerated that process.

The casting plant closed in 2010, about a year after Engine Plant No. 1 reopened to make Ford's 3.5-liter V-6 EcoBoost engine. Last year, Ford shuttered Cleveland Engine Plant No. 2, putting workers there on a new shift to make those EcoBoost engines for pickups.

Local 1250 President Mike Gammella said Brook Park came dangerously close to shutting down entirely as Ford restructured. Falling to the 1,065 people who work there now, from 2,600 just a few years ago, made it hard to envision growth in the future.

Thinking back to those days, Gammella couldn't quite hold back the tears.

"This plant has 66 people in it and a program that was years behind schedule. But we turned it around," Gammella said. "I can't tell you how many times I was told no, but we stuck with it."

Plant Manager Charlie Binger said Brook Park's brighter future matches Ford's improvement in recent years.

Six years ago, the company faced a bleak future and had to slash employment, restructure every aspect of its business and figure out how to run the company all over again. That meant getting smaller before figuring out how to grow again.

Engine Plant No. 1 now represents Ford's future. The high-tech V-6 engines it makes for pickups are the most popular ones available in the F-150, Ford's best-selling vehicle. EcoBoost, Ford's term for turbocharged engines that use direct fuel injection, has been a massive success for the company.

The company says using small, turbocharged engines allows it to replace V-6s with four-cylinder engines and cut V-8s in favor of Brook Park's EcoBoost V-6. The smaller engines are more fuel efficient than the bigger models they replace.

Binger came to the plant in 2009 to launch the EcoBoost V-6, and as its popularity grew, Engine Plant No. 1 went from one to three shifts. But each new shift came from another portion of the Brook Park campus shutting down.

"It's always exciting to bring in new folks at a plant," Binger said. "The challenge here was that we were doing that as we phased out the casting business, as we phased out the Plant No. 2 business."

Ford plans to add the first shift of new workers toward the end of next year, bringing about 200 more people into the plant. Binger said a second shift should follow in early 2015. Many of those workers will come from closing Ford plants such as the Walton Hills Stamping Plant set to close by 2015.

"As they start to phase down production, we'll be ready to bring people in," Binger said. "But they aren't going to be enough. This is going to be a combination of transfers and new hires."

Ford is only committing to 450 workers on two extra shifts for now. But Binger and Gammella said a third shift is highly likely. Ford uses the 2-liter EcoBoost engine in everything from a hot-rod version of the Focus small car to the Explorer sport utility vehicle. It will be an option in most of Ford's most-popular vehicles.

Three of the vehicles now using the Spanish-made 2-liter EcoBoost used to have 3-liter V-6s made at Cleveland Engine Plant No. 2.

Watching Brook Park go through such misery yet emerge as the plant making Ford's most-important engines has been inspiring, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said.

"This plant is really a cornerstone, not just of Brook Park and Cleveland's comeback, but of America's comeback. You have all made America very proud," she said. She later added, "Ford is coming back. The auto industry is coming back. America is coming back and Cleveland is definitely coming back."