Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A01
Six months after promising to create an office to help the nation's struggling manufacturers, President Bush settled on someone to head it, but the nomination was being reconsidered last night after Democrats revealed that his candidate had opened a factory in China.
Several officials said the nomination may be scrapped because of the political risk but said that had not been decided. Bush's opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), has made job losses his chief point of attack, and some administration officials feared the nomination could hand him fresh ammunition.
In late afternoon, the administration announced that the new assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services would be named at a ceremony this morning. Industry officials were told that the job would go to Anthony F. Raimondo, chairman and chief executive of a Nebraska company that makes metal buildings and grain silos.
But Kerry's campaign, tipped off about the impending nomination several hours earlier, hastened to distribute news reports that Raimondo's firm, Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, Neb., had laid off 75 U.S. workers in 2002, four months after announcing plans for a $3 million factory in northwest Beijing.
And here's pics:
From the Kerry forum:
http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=11247 Tony Raimondo at the new Glass Factory building in Fujian, China
New Behlen Glass factory Building. Approx. 300,000 sq.ft.
http://www.behlenedge.com/photos/trade.asp And defense contracts:
http://www.defenselink.mil/search97/s97is....20Manufacturing http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/defense_e...ntractors02.pdf