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Brad Glendee was working at a GM plant in Wisconsin that was about to close in 2008. So he moved his family to Michigan and transferred to GM's Orion plant. Before he knew it, the Orion plant shut down, too, and Glendee was out of work for six months.

“There was a lot of uncertainty at that point, so I decided to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the leadership was making the right decision.”

One big decision: investing more than 500 million dollars to completely retour the Orion plant to do something that GM hasn't done in more than two decades—produce the subcompact car in the United States.

“Chevrolet Sonic hatchback, a very sporty and aggressive design, not only on the exterior, but also on the interior, a very fuel efficient vehicle.”

15,000 Orion employees are back, building the Chevrolet Sonic set to hit showroom this fall.

“I think it's an opportunity for us to show off that our manufacturing system can build anything. We can make it cheap, we can make it good.”

The plant was completely gutted and redesigned to save half a million square feet of floor space, allowing suppliers to operate closer to the assembly line.

“You think about going in and taking out everything except for the concrete floor and the roof and then just starting over, that's essentially what we did a year and a half ago.”

Energy efficiencies will also help loosen the tight profit margin among cars selling for less than $15,000.

“I think it's a risk but I think it's a calculated risk in a sense that, because there is more demands for small vehicles. And Chevrolet traditionally never had a portfolio extended down that far into small cars. So trying to meet consumer demands and looking the future diversification away from trucks. I think it's an important step for them.”

Another cost saving is a controversial agreement with the United Auto Workers tied to the federal government's massive bailout of GM and Chrysler. It's a two-tiered labor agreement for many newly hired workers to be paid 14 to 16 dollars an hour, about half of what GM veterans made.

“I think we all had to go through a culture change between union and management.”

It's a bold gamble by both the UAW and General Motors. It's gonna be successful. That's going to be really important for creating more jobs there. But that two-tiered wage system remains controversial among some in the UAW. In fact, that very issue is on the table right now in negotiations over a new UAW contract, whose talks are expected to wrap up later this month.

Casey Wiam, cnn, Orion, Michigan.