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Bluffton group sees China boom
By Scott Borgelt Bluffton UniversityPage:
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BLUFFTON, Ohio — Chad Kinnear got to see how his company does business on the other side of the world.
The Bluffton University delegation visits the Great Wall of China. Front row, from left: Mike and Ginger O’Malley of Ottawa and Lenora Murph of Troy. Back row: Chad Kinnear of Lima, professor George Lehman, Tim Yoder of Archbold, Al Bishop of Wapakoneta and professor Karen Klassen Harder. — Photo by Bluffton University
Kinnear, who is pursuing a master of business administration degree at Bluffton University, was among eight members of a delegation that represented the university on a study tour of China for two weeks in June.
Led by Karen Klassen Harder, professor of business, and also including George Lehman, Howard Raid professor of business and director of graduate programs in business, the group visited manufacturers with ties to northwest Ohio, as well as a hospital, a university, a farm and several tourist sites.
Kinnear, a sales engineer for Latrobe, Pa.-based Kennametal Inc., a supplier of metal-cutting tools, was one of two MBA students on the trip.
Three graduates also joined the delegation, the second from Bluffton to see China. Both study tours — the first was in 2008 — were facilitated by Mennonite Partners in China and its director, Myrrl Byler.
This year’s stops included a visit to a Kennametal plant in Tianjin, south of Beijing, where Kinnear looked forward to seeing the quality of the company’s China-made goods.
“I felt very comfortable with the product,” he said. “They use the same machines and technology we use in the U.S.”
He was also anxious for a look at China’s massive growth, an economic development effort in which Kennametal is an active player, he said.
Driving the roughly two hours from Beijing to Tianjin, “it seemed like every 10 miles you’d see a new highway being built running east and west,” he said. Construction cranes are a common sight in every city skyline.
The trip’s goals included “trying to get a picture of this phenomenal development process,” Lehman noted. China, for instance, is closing in on the U.S. in interstate highway mileage, despite having begun major construction only in the late 1990s.
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