TOLEDO, OH -- The General Motors Regional Sales & Marketing Manager visited Toledo Wednesday to tour plants and encourage workers.

Marc Hernandez says GM is taking advantage of its second chance at success. He brought a bright yet basic outlook to Northwest Ohio.

Hernandez says the company needs to focus on what he calls the "three c's": customers, cars and culture.

If that sounds obvious, perhaps it is. But right now GM is reevaluating everything, even encouraging dealers to update their showrooms to provide the best possible car-buying experience.

"That's really how we get the customers back, you build great cars, you build great quality, reliability, dependability, you give them a great ownership experience and one customer at a time we'll get them back," said Hernandez.

But UAW Local 14 President Ray Wood says he is only "cautiously optimistic" about GM's future. While he feels the company is on the right track and ahead of schedule, he does not believe the Toledo plants will ever see the peak of the auto industry employment again.

"We'll never be back up to 5,000 but we're going to push, we're going to hope, we're going to do everything that we can to try to get those umbers back up there. But the most important thing right now is to make sure that we get our membership back in that plant and working as soon as possible," said Wood.

At the same time, Toledo is doing much better than other areas.

A transmission plant shutdown in Michigan has brought more business to Northwest Ohio and hundreds of laid-off employees are back on the payroll.

Northwest Ohio is also taking advantage of changes in GM's lineup.

The Toledo plant is now building rear and front-wheel drive transmissions. Doing so ensures stability.

"If you go into the plant you'll see two brand new transmission plants on either side with an empty area in the middle. That was done in case one of them grows or the other grows and it gives us the flexibility to move. But there are still other products GM is developing with respect to more fuel-efficient transmissions that could also have potential for this plant as well," said Joe Choate, Toledo Plant Manager.