By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — While some Capitol Hill politicians are cool toward propping up the Detroit auto industry, two Bloomfield-area advocates are trying to raise grass-roots support.

The nation’s Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — have been struggling to survive amid plummeting sales figures. Although some lawmakers created a $14 billion automaker loan package, the effort failed in the Senate Dec. 11. Since then, the Bush administration has considered helping the auto industry by releasing money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Bloomfield Township-based IteroText Translation Services is not in the business of giving loans. But the company put together a new Web site called Support The Auto Industry.

The site is intended to boost grass-roots support and encourage businesses to give employees incentives to buy Big Three vehicles. If companies do this, the automakers, the suppliers and the customers all win, said Beverly Cornell, IteroText’s marketing and sales director.

Cornell said her company has provided translation services for the local auto industry for more than 30 years, and GM is one of its largest customers.

“We felt that after hearing a lot of the news press, and a lot of it was negative … we felt like our hands are tied,” she said. “The idea came to us about a month ago. We’ve been working fast.”

So far, the Web site campaign has attracted 23 companies, Cornell said. Most of all, the site is a reminder that the car companies’ fate foreshadows the health of the economy.

“The auto industry in the Detroit region is a food chain,” she said. “If the Big Three companies are selling vehicles, it trickles down to the suppliers, to the employees of the suppliers, to the local business that the employees frequent, to the communities and the nonprofits. If the top of the food chain is doing well, the rest of us will do well.”

IteroText is not the only company to rally around the Big Three. Robert Dempster, owner of the Royal Oak-based Detroit Rocks! store, is selling a T-shirt called “Save Detroit Save America” for those who want to wear awareness. The shirt shows the Detroit skyline and the Big Three’s logos.

Dempster, a Bloomfield Hills entrepreneur, went to Washington, D.C., in November to promote his cause and to visit politicians and union members.

“We met with (U.S. Rep.) Joe Knollenberg; we sat on three Senate hearings; we walked all the hallways; we went everywhere,” he said.

While the trip’s purpose was dialogue and not protest, Dempster said his mission is congruent to his business’ mission of saving Detroit. “Somebody has to speak up. Somebody has to do something,” he said.

For more information on Detroit Rocks!, visit http://www.detroitrocks.cc. For more information on the Support the Auto Industry Web site, visit http://www.supporttheautoindustry.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Eric Czarnik at eczarnik@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1058.