Hella Lighting Achieves Employment Milestone

YORK, S.C., Feb. 24 -- More than one hundred employees are now part of the team at Hella Lighting Corporation's facility in York, South Carolina, as Hella continues its commitment to growth in York County.

The state-of-the-art headlamp manufacturing plant in the East York Industrial Park opened in June 2001 with just four people.

"Hella will continue to seek highly motivated people to support our growth over the next two to three years as we launch new products for DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Mercedes-Benz at this facility," said Skip Barnes, the plant's manager.

"It's gratifying to see so much growth in less than two years," added Barnes. "We're still small enough to have a 'family' feel, but we're getting bigger and better all the time."

As a premier supplier of automotive lighting systems for the North American vehicle market, Hella Lighting provides full design, development and manufacturing to its automotive customer base. The company has pioneered new headlamp technology intended to improve driver safety worldwide.

Hella is a tier one supplier of lighting, electronic equipment, sensors and complete vehicle front-end modules to the auto industry. Hella North America and its parent company, Hella KG Hueck & Company, have 22,500 employees at more than 58 production locations in 16 countries throughout the world. Worldwide consolidated sales for Hella during the company's 2001-2002 fiscal year grew to more than $2.9 billion. Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at http://www.hellana.com/ or www.hella.de