蓝鸟公司

Management leads a leveraged buy-out of Blue Bird with the help of Merrill Lynch Capital Partners and renames the company Blue Bird Corporation. Blue Bird Corporation, based in Macon, Georgia, is the leading manufacturer of school buses in North America. A wholly owned subsidiary of British bus maker Henlys Group plc since 1999, Blue Bird also manufactures high-end recreational vehicles and commercial buses geared toward charter, tour, and commuter usage. The company offers its products to both private and public organizations, including school districts, state governmental agencies, corporations, and churches. The majority of Blue Bird's products are sold through a network of distributors located in the United States and Canada. The company also offers financing packages to school bus customers and manages four manufacturing facilities, located in Georgia, Iowa, Canada, and Mexico. Albert L. Luce, Sr., was a dealer of Ford automobiles in Fort Valley, Georgia, located about 25 miles south of Macon. The small, quiet town boasted groves of pecan trees and little else. Luce's foray into the building of buses began one day when he sold a bus to a customer at his dealership. Luce did not consider the bus, which was built on a Model-T frame, to be of high quality, and he informed the customer that he could probably build a better bus himself. The customer retorted that maybe he should try, and this led Luce to build his first bus, completed in 1927. Luce sold the bus that same year to an individual in a nearby town, and it was put into operation transporting schoolchildren. Luce then went on to build seven additional buses, and in 1932 he sold his car dealership and formally founded Blue Bird. Much of Luce's inspiration for starting a new company was reportedly attributable to his strong Methodist faith. The economic depression in the United States was causing car sales to decline, and Luce took this as a divine sign that he should manufacture buses and create jobs in his community. The name of the company, on the other hand, was allegedly inspired by a group of schoolchildren. Luce determined that using the family name would most likely be a poor idea, conjuring up bad puns such as 'loose bus.' Then, while showing a blue and yellow bus model to some school officials, some of the students dubbed the bus a 'pretty little blue bird.' Luce was taking somewhat of a leap of faith with his new company, as public education in the United States at that time generally consisted of small, neighborhood schoolhouses within walking distance of most students' homes. Luce predicted, however, that the consolidation of schools into larger units serving a wider geographical range and improvements in the quality of roads, as well as the building of new roads, would increase the demand for school buses. Aware of the possibility of a saturated market, the impending decline of school-age children, and the problems inherent in relying on one product for all sales, diversification was also on the Luce boys' agenda. Over the course of several decades Blue Bird tried out new products, including city buses, soda delivery trucks, and a window fan. The majority of these new product attempts failed, but one succeeded, though it, too, had a relatively inauspicious start; in 1963 Blue Bird introduced the Wanderlodge, a high-end recreational vehicle, and entered the motor home market. The original Wanderlodge was priced at $12,000, and the company had high hopes, anticipating a growing audience for luxury recreational vehicles. To promote its new product, Blue Bird sent some of its employees on a two-year trip around the country. Their instructions were to drive the Wanderlodge to various motor home camps to increase visibility and create interest, which would then, hopefully, generate sales. The marketing concept failed, however, and Blue Bird began preparing to return to the drawing board. Then, around the same time, in 1965, House Beautiful magazine publis