The former mayor of Chattanooga’s newest sister city flew to the city last week to meet with outgoing Mayor Ron Littlefield before Littlefield leaves office next month. On the eve of his 4,500-mile trip to Chattanooga, former Wolfsburg Mayor Rolf Schnellecke also greeted a delegation of Chattanooga business leaders in his hometown in Germany.
Schnellecke, who served as Wolfsburg mayor from 1995 until 2011, said he had “great fun” with Littlefield during a couple of German visits by the Chattanooga mayor.
But this week’s events on both sides of the Atlantic are not just a cultural exchange. Schnellecke serves as chairman of his family’s logistics business, Schnellecke Group AG & Co. KG, which has more than 16,000 employees worldwide. Schnellecke joined with Chattanooga-based Kenco Logistics Services more than two years ago to form Team 3 Logistics, which in February 2011 took over the management of VW’s maintenance report and operations storerooms in Chattanooga.
Before returning home at the end of the week, Schnellecke is meeting with Kenco and VW officials.
Griscom returns to Brandenburg
More than 25 years after he worked on one of Ronald Reagan’s most famous speeches delivered here, former White House Communications Director Tom Griscom returned to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, last week for the first time to see the speech memorialized in plaques and souvenirs.
“Tear down this wall!” was the challenge issued by U.S. President Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbechev to destroy the Berlin Wall, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin.
Griscom recalled that after Reagan delivered his famous appeal, there was silence for a few seconds from the West Berlin crowd before applause broke out.
Tennessee pension fund cited
Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System, the state’s retirement fund for state government, higher education and other public employees, is managing its investments better than any other large public pension plan in the country, says Money Management Intelligence.
TCRS, which is part of the Tennessee Treasury Department, was recognized as the Large Public Plan of the Year during Money Management Intelligence’s 12th Annual Public Pension Plan Awards for Excellence banquet in Huntington Beach, CA. Public pension plans were evaluated based on their innovativeness and investment performance.
The large public pension fund category included 87 funds across the country with total assets of $10 billion or more.
