Cedar Rapids man suggests ‘auto disassembly lines’ at D.C. jobs summit

A Cedar Rapids businessman was ready with fresh job creation ideas at Thursday's White House “jobs forum” called by President Obama.

During a brainstorming session, Bill Aossey, founder and president of Midamar Corp., an export-import trading company, recommended creating automotive “disassembly lines” to recover hard steel and other valuable materials as a way to create jobs and import less oil.

“Some of the hardest steel is found in wheel lugs,” Aossey said. “You could have a mobile line where you put vehicles on a conveyor belt and have people remove the wheel lugs, copper, chrome and seating material.

“There's also a lot of hard steel in the engine blocks, transmissions and rear ends. Instead of using oil to bring iron ore into this country, we have hundreds of thousands of tons of copper, chrome, lead and steel laying around the United States in salvage yards.”

While noting that there are insufficient resources to retrain everyone who is unemployed to run computers, Aossey said an automotive recycling program would create jobs that could put people nationwide back to work fairly quickly.

Aossey and Des Moines Mayor T.M. Franklin Cownie were the only Iowans invited to participate in the forum.

Aossey asked U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to commit funds to finish the widening of U.S. Highway 30 to four lanes from Ames to Clinton.

“I explained to him how Interstate 80 has diverted a lot of business from many of the smaller towns along Highway 30,” Aossey said. “I told that it's just as easy to get on Highway 30 to go to Illinois, but people avoid it because of the two-lane stretches.”

LaHood promised Aossey that his department would contact Iowa officials to recommend funding the Highway 30 upgrades.

Aossey talked with President Obama about the restrictions on visas for businesspeople and students wanting to come to the United States. He explained that visits by foreign business executives and students have dropped dramatically since Sept. 11, 2001.

“I agreed with him that security is very important, but a phobia has developed that the world is very dangerous,” Aossey said. “That's just not the case.

“We need to bring more foreign executives here, and we need to be funding more foreign trade missions to increase trade and investment.”

Aossey also spoke with Obama about delays in receiving flood recovery assistance.

“I told him Cedar Rapids still has several thousands homes that are not livable,” Aossey said. “I also brought up the inadequacy of the distribution of some of the funding for flood relief in a meeting with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.”

While the CEOs of large corporations like Boeing, FedEx and U.S. Steel were invited to the jobs forum, Aossey said most of the participants were small- and medium-size business owners.

“There was a realization that large companies shed a lot of jobs when the economy is hurting and smaller employers hold onto their people,” he said. “Smaller businesses don't go on hiring binges and then have Fridays with pink slips.”

Obama, commenting after the forum and breakout sessions, said he'd heard many “exciting ideas and proposals” and that he hoped some could be put into action quickly.