Name: Kim Hill
Title: Group Director, Sustainable Transportation and Communities, Director, Automotive Communities Program and Associate Director, Research
Company: Center for Automotive Research
Presentation: Coming Soon

Kim Hill is director of the Automotive Communities Program and Sustainable Transportation and Communities Group within the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). The Automotive Communities Program (ACP) is a program aimed at helping government and economic developers in traditional automotive communities across the upper Midwest and Canada understand the ever-changing dynamic of the automotive industry as these organizations work on attraction and retention efforts. Currently, 40 communities participate in the program, along with five of the largest automobile manufacturing companies in the world and numerous tier one suppliers.

Mr. Hill’s work with CAR has focused on economic and business modeling, for the purpose of public policy analysis. He has authored and co-authored studies, for instance, examining the total annual economic activity of the domestic automotive industry; the economic well-being of the top suppliers in the State of Michigan; and an analysis of the effects state regulations have on automotive capital investment.

Mr. Hill is CAR’s lead investigator on economic impact analyses. These analyses estimate employment and economic impacts on the national and state economies that result from automotive company activities. Studies by CAR have previously examined the impact of the entire U.S. motor vehicle assembly sector, the U.S.-based international assembly sector, and Toyota’s U.S.-based operations, and will soon be examining the impact of the entire U.S.-based automotive supplier sector.

Mr. Hill received his B.F.A. degree from the University of Michigan. He ran his own freelance photography business and managed a department for a commercial photographic lab. After many interesting years in the business, he returned to school to earn a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

After graduation, Mr. Hill joined the staff of the City Administrator’s Office with the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he analyzed public policy issues and their potential effect on the city, including a proposed city income tax. Concurrently, with the Center for Environmental Policy, Economics, and Science, he co-authored a study which quantified the economic benefits of enhanced recycling of automobiles at the end of their life cycle.

Mr. Hill then joined the University of Michigan’s Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation, and co-authored many studies which focused on issues affecting the global automotive industry, such as global expansion and capacity impacts, changes in the automotive retail structure, and modeling automotive sales during various stages of economic expansion and recession. After leaving the University of Michigan, and before joining CAR he worked as a business consultant, specializing in customer satisfaction studies, for CFI Group, of Ann Arbor, Michigan.