Well, when my company first started their US site, they actually imported Germans for this task.  My current boss was actually groomed with the task of eventually spending two years in Chicago to literally build the MB lab from the ground up.  But it’s not just her, there was a large group of Germans that did this.  By the time I came into the company, we were about 40/60 German/Americans.  My first six months there was when there was the large exodus of Germans returning to their homeland…..so there were a of parties.  But I never lost touch with them.

This is mostly due to having our own instant messaging program that works for everyone within the company regardless of country as well as our phones were wired to also work in either country.  This group of people ended up serving as a bridge between both countries and actually helped relations between the sites.  So when we had questions or problems in Chicago, we had people in Germany who knew us.