By Christine Tierney
The Detroit News

ANNA, Ohio - Vicky Burress was 47 years old when she realized her family needed a second income to put two children through college.

She had a flimsy resume - a high school education and mostly volunteer experience - when she applied for work at Honda Motor Co.'s engine factory here. But she got a job and now, eight years later, she checks four- and six-cylinder engines for defects.

"I never thought I could come here at 47, make this kind of money, and have an interesting job," Burress says.

Across central Ohio, thousands of lives like Burress' have been transformed since 1979 when Honda opened its first U.S. factory - a motorcycle plant near Marysville.

Three years later, the automaker opened the first Japanese car factory in the United States, marking a momentous shift in the auto industry and a difficult chapter for the Big Three.

In spite of big cultural differences and some misgivings on the part of the Japanese and Ohioans, Honda's operations succeeded far beyond expectations.

Over the past 25 years, Honda has invested more than $6 billion in Ohio, added a second car plant, a research center and the Anna factory, the third-largest engine plant in North America.

But Honda took a huge risk when it decided to build vehicles in the United States. It was a small company then, the youngest and fifth-largest Japanese carmaker. Today, bolstered by profits generated in the United States, Honda is second in Japan after Toyota Motor Corp.

As Honda officials, state and local authorities in Ohio celebrated the company's silver anniversary Friday, old-timers recall ed the hair-raising early days.

In the late 1970s, Honda had already established factories overseas, building a motorbike plant in Italy.

But its plan to build an American factory seemed rash. Larger rivals Toyota and Nissan Motor Co. were still shying from such bold moves.

American suppliers balked at producing components for Honda's car factory, where the initial production run was only 150,000 cars a year. Honda's U.S. dealers questioned whether customers would trust a Honda built in America. Even Honda executives had some doubts.

But once the motorcycle plant was up and running in 1979, Honda's Japanese managers relaxed. "We didn't find significant differences between American and Japanese workers," said Toshikata Amino, a now-retired marketing executive dispatched to Ohio because he spoke English.

Honda's new employees in Ohio grew accustomed to the automaker's exacting ways and its emphasis on punctuality.