Meet Your New Commerce Secretary

Meet Carlos Gutierrez:

US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) nominated 51-year-old Carlos Gutierrez, the Cuban-born head of cereals giant Kellogg Co., as his new commerce secretary.



[snip]



said Gutierrez, who began with Kellogg Co. selling cereal out of a van in Mexico City and is now chairman and chief executive of the group, knew the world of business from the first rung of the ladder to the top.



"Carlos's family came to America from Cuba when he was a boy. He learned English from a bellhop in a Miami hotel and later became an American citizen," Bush said at a joint news conference.



"When his family eventually settled in Mexico City, Carlos took his first job for Kellogg as a truck driver, delivering Frosted Flakes to local stores," the US leader said.



"Ten years after he started, he was running the Mexican business. And 15 years after that, he was running the entire company."



The president called on the Senate to confirm the nomination as quickly as possible.



Bush vowed to reform the "outdated" tax code so as to eliminate pointless paperwork while stimulating savings, investment and growth.



He promised to cut the burden of "junk lawsuits" on business.



The administration also would help more Americans, especially minorities and women, start small businesses, he said.



"He knows exactly what it takes to make American businesses grow and create jobs," Bush said.

Here's how Gutierrez was creating jobs in 1999:

In a move to cuts costs, Kellogg Company said it is considering the closure of the South Operations portion of its Battle Creek, Mich., cereal plant. The closure would eliminate up to 64 percent of the jobs at the facility.



"Streamlining our operations and avoiding future costs would help keep our North American cereal business cost-competitive going into the 21st century," said Kellogg chief exec Carlos Gutierrez.



Under the proposal being considered, up to 700 of the current 1,100 "hourly and salaried positions at the plant would be eliminated as early as the first quarter of 2000. The news comes seven months after Kellogg cut 525 jobs -- 21 percent of its salaried workforce -- as part of a reorganization of its North American operations.

So I guess what we can read from this is that women and minorities can plan to start businesses selling their worldly goods on Ebay.



(via Kos)