Tradition continues: hybrid converter is the latest in Union City's transportation history.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: REGIONAL REPORT EAST - Company overview

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A COMMUNITY WITH A long tradition in transportation is set to add more miles as Productive Concepts Inc. (PCI) adds hybrid school bus conversions to its product and service lineup. The company founded in 1999 by Rob Lykins got the green light in January when the Indiana Department of Education approved safety standards allowing hybrid diesel school buses in the state.

"We've talked to 50 school districts in Indiana already and we're getting meetings and presentations set up," Lykins said shortly after DOE gave the nod to his prototype. This summer, he hopes to have a steady stream of yellow buses pulling in for fuel conversions, marking yet another milestone for his hometown.

Auto ties since 1898. Among Union City's transportation claims to fame: Auto pioneer Harry Stutz, who founded the Ideal Motor Co. in Indianapolis in 1911, is a native son. The town was home to Union Automobile Co., which made a rear-engine, gearless, friction-drive car from 1902 to 1905. And its longest contributor to the automotive history, Union City Body Co., operated from 1898 to 2005.

Early on, Union City Body made auto bodies for Haynes, Apperson and Premier, then Duesenherg, Essex and the Auburn Speedster. By the 1930s, school bus bodies and Studebaker truck cabs were rolling out its doors followed in the 1950s by Ford, Dodge, GMC and Chevrolet truck bodies and then van and delivery truck models. Production continued until 2005, when the company was purchased and the new owner closed the local plant.

In the meantime, Workhorse Custom Chassis, a sister company to Union City Body which makes motor home, commercial vehicle and bus chassis, came to town. And its need for subassemblies prompted hometown entrepreneur Lykins to launch Productive Concepts.

Coincidentally, one of Productive Concepts' sites--and where the bus fuel systems will be converted--is part of the former Union City Body complex.

Homegrown success. That's the first coincidence. The second is that Lykins' first school bus conversion was a prototype converted for Randolph Eastern School Corp., headed by superintendent Cathy Stephen. She was Lykins' guidance counselor at Union City Community High School and the bus is in use at the school system where he was educated.

Stephen says was interested from the time she first heard Productive Concepts was doing hybrid conversions of step vans. "I went to that announcement and I raised my hand that day and said, 'How about school...