WARREN – As part of an ongoing advertising campaign touting Detroit as a conference and convention destination, the Detroit Metro Visitors and Convention Bureau tapped the Army?s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center at the U.S. Army Garrison – Detroit Arsenal for both a location and personality to feature in its latest print ad highlighting Detroit?s burgeoning defense industry.

Sonya Zanardelli, TARDEC?s Energy Storage team leader, is featured in the ad next to quote reading: ?For 70 years, Detroit has been the center of the defense industry. I?m proud to be a part of that heritage as we lead the way by sharing our state-of-the-art testing and research facilities with the robotics, automotive and other advanced technology industries.?

According to Bill Bohde, Detroit Metro VCB Sales and Marketing senior vice president, the Bureau?s Detroit 3.0 campaign is focused on six regional growth industries: defense, entertainment, green tech, medical research, transportation logistics and urban farming. ?This campaign is opening eyes to other growth regions that are supplementary and complementary to the auto industry,? he explained. ?Our defense heritage is well-documented, and we continue to play a critical role in the defense industry for the region, state and Nation.?

The ad will run in number of meeting and convention publications across the country this summer.

Zanardelli, 32, currently oversees 10 associates at TARDEC?s Energy Storage team ? a department responsible for work on advanced batteries. According to TARDEC Interim Director Jennifer Hitchcock, she was picked for the ad for counterintuitive reasons. ?The Army often doesn?t get credit for some of the high-tech work and high-tech associates we employee,? said Hitchcock. ?Sonya and her team are doing game-changing work in the battery arena, and she is emblematic of the type of talent ? much of it home-grown ? we have working across this installation and around the region.?

The print ad was shot at the U.S. Army Garrison – Detroit Arsenal in the new Ground Systems Power and Energy Laboratory (GSPEL). The GSPEL officially opened in April 2012 and is a 30,000 square-foot, eight-labs-in-one complex. From all accounts, this was first ad shot on base.

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