For the last year or so I have become increasingly more worried about my job security at Chief Automotive, not so much worried that I would get laid off but that the company would fold. So I quit, and took a position with Case New Holland, yes this is the company I worked for right out of college. I am now the Resident Design Engineer for the Crop Preparation Group at the Grand Island plant…basically I design haytools…these things. I am the “Resident” Design Engineer because I don’t actually work for the plant, I work for the design group in New Holland, PA. That means I am the only design engineer, for haytools, in the plant. My boss and all my co-workers are in Pennsylvania.
The plant still builds combines, haytools are kind of the red headed step child of the plant. The production line is stuck over in a corner and most people don’t really care too much about them, because they are not combines and I like it that way.
It is very odd being back, I left almost three years ago and I never thought I would come back. I left because I was a Manufacturing Engineer and I wanted to get into design and Chief Automotive offered me that. Now I am back as an “experienced” design engineer, a little hire up the food chain. The product, production line and the area of the building did not exist the last time I was at the plant, so everything is different but at the same time nothing has changed.
Fun Fact: Case New Holland is owned by The Fiat Group, so Ferrari is technicaly a sister company. Fiat is also in the middle of taking over Chrysler… maybe.
Frozenrobot 