Comeback Kid from Cordoba.

Argentine turns bankrupt U.S. company into top auto industry supplier.

FOR GENERATIONS, THE FIELDS UNROLling across this plain west of Detroit were the purview of Midwestern farmers. Today, farms coexist with auto industry factories creeping out of urban areas. In the middle of it all, a colossal Argentine flag flaps in the wind.

The flag, like the others that grace six manufacturing facilities in Michigan and one in Argentina, is the first hint that, although Facundo Bravo may have left Argentina, Argentina hasn't left him. More than three decades after immigrating to the United States, where the engineered one of Detroit's rare turnaround tales, the stocky cordobes is entrenched in the powerful automotive community.

Awards from General Motors, Ford Motors Co. and Chrysler headquarters. His name appears on the roster of executives who worked to win Nafta approval. And now he's lobbying on behalf of the Free Trade Area of the America.

During the tough 1980s, Bravo pumped his money into troubled Uni Boring, only to see the bottom fall out of the auto sector--and his plant tumble into bankruptcy. He not only rescued the firm but pushed it to growth at a time when other failing companies were disappearing. From 1990 to 1999, Uni Boring saw annual sales swell from US$10 million to $115 million as the company pushed back into the top tier of industry suppliers. It closed 2000 near the $140 million sales mark and with a payroll of 1,200.

Bravo recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of the day when he packed his bags, promised his bride of three months that he'd send for her and set off for Detroit, where his brother worked as an auto engineer. Then a 23-year-old tool maker, he landed a day job at Ford Motor Co. and found night work in a small automotive shop. He moved his wife to the United States, improved his English and eventually ascended to better jobs among the auto suppliers that dominate Detroit.

"My dream was that I would go to the United States for a few years, gain experience, make some money and go back to Argentina," explains Bravo. "But I started getting involved with new projects. Then my kids were born, and suddenly I was part of the society."

Dark times. He'd been a partner at Uni Boring for seven years before he took over the facility in 1983. He describes the almost immediate bankruptcy of the facility as the second most difficult moment of his life. The death of his wife was the first.

There are many reasons for Bravo's success. For one thing, he took advantage of fledgling programs at the Big Three automakers to encourage minority-owned companies. For another, he embraced technology. His management style, which emphasizes respect for others, appeals to talented employees.

Casually dressed, Bravo strolls through his headquarters, greeting employees and poking his head into meetings to joke. "I like to wander around the manufacturing plants. Nobody ever knows where I am," he says. But Bravo makes clear that he's observing operations, not monitoring employees. "Once an individual gets into a management position, I don't interfere," he explains. "I trust them."

He's also keen on keeping everyone in the know. He's now married to Nelida, another Argentine, and both she and his adult children take an active role in company's operations.

Bravo carved out his success alone, but he's working hard to make it easier for the immigrants who follow. He and two other Hispanic business owners plowed millions of dollars into a pilot facility in a blighted area of inner city Detroit. Today the 60-acre Hispanic Manufacturing Center houses satellite operations for Uni Boring, Ideal Steel and engineering company Gonzalez Design Group. The manufacturing center created 450 jobs in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood where unemployment once hovered at 25%; about 15% of the jobs have gone to former felons and gang members otherwise considered unemployable.

"Argentines are bullheaded and hard to get along with and Bravo is both of those," says Ideal Steel CEO Frank Venegas, a Mexican-American who describes the Argentine as his best friend. "But that's not bad. He gets things done."

The Argentine not only drew Venegas into the manufacturing center plan, he convinced the steel supplier to go high tech. "I became the first person in my industry to get some of this computer-related technology. Now I can't live without it," Venegas says.

In March 2000, Bravo added the Uni Boring name to an auto parts facility in Cordoba. His first action after that acquisition was to alter the telephone system so that Argentine folklore music, not U.S. pop, serenades callers on hold.

The Rar Uni Boring plant in Argentina represents more than just a foreign investment for Bravo. "I always hoped I could do something, bring something, to my own country," he says.