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GM CEO Responds to Mahoning Valley Students

Mahoning and Trumbull county students drew pictures and wrote letters to GM CEO Mary Barra.
UAW LOCAL 1112
Mahoning and Trumbull county students drew pictures and wrote letters to GM CEO Mary Barra.

General Motors Chief Executive Officer has responded to correspondence from Mahoning Valley students about the company's plans to shut down its assembly plant in Lordstown. 

UAW Local 1112 shared one of the letters submitted by students asking GM CEO Mary Barra to reconsider stopping production at the Lordstown plant.
Credit UAW LOCAL 1112
UAW Local 1112 shared one of the letters submitted by students asking GM CEO Mary Barra to reconsider stopping production at the Lordstown plant.

Students sent Mary Barra letters and drawingsappealing for her to reconsider the plan to unallocate the Lordstown facility in March. G-M plans to end production of the Chevrolet Cruze, which is built there.

In her letter (see the full text below), Barra says the company is offering workers jobs at other GM facilities. 

Lordstown schools superintendent Terry Armstrong says that is little comfort for the students.

 Lordstown schools superintendent Terry Armstrong

"They're worried because even if they're not impacted, you can still tell in the writng that their friends are impacted. They don't want to see their friends move. There's still that unknown."

Barra also told the students GM is working with United Way to help those workers who don't relocate.

The Lordstown plant idling is part of a major GM reorganization that involves four other plants--two in Michigan, one in Maryland, and one in Ontario, Canada. Besides the Cruze, GM is ending production of the Chevy Volt, Chevy Impala, Buick Lacrosse, and Cadillac XTS and CT6.  

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A Northeast Ohio native, Sarah Taylor graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she worked at her first NPR station, WMUB. She began her professional career at WCKY-AM in Cincinnati and spent two decades in television news, the bulk of them at WKBN in Youngstown (as Sarah Eisler). For the past three years, Sarah has taught a variety of courses in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State, where she is also pursuing a Master’s degree. Sarah and her husband Scott, have two children. They live in Tallmadge.
Brandon is a junior journalism major at Kent State University with experience in broadcast, print, visual, radio and digital journalism. During the school year, Bounds works for student media with TV2 and The Kent Stater/Kentwired. Additionally, Bounds is a rising fellow for the Carnegie-Knight national News21 program for the upcoming summer.