The Project: Inside Corporate Location Decisions

Of the hundreds of articles written about Amazon's HQ2 search, only one publication has taken the bold step to apply the criteria outlined in Amazon's public request for proposal and independently conduct its own search. That was The New York Times, which published "Dear Amazon: We Picked Your Headquarters for You" on September 9, 2017. The article has been widely read and created a storm of discussion on social media—so we decided to interview the Emily Badger, the reporter behind the somewhat controversial piece. Here's our conversation.

In March 2013, IBM shocked the tech community with its plan to build an 800-job technology center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In our second episode of "The Big Deal" series, we take a look at the impact of this major announcement on Baton Rouge and the State of Louisiana as a whole. To get the full story, we talked to Adam Knapp, President and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) and Greg Trahan, Director of Economic Development for Louisiana State University (LSU). Finally, to zero in on the effect of the project on the community, we asked our DCI colleague and current resident of Baton Rouge, Rebecca Gehman, to conduct some "woman on the street" interviews with local business owners.

On August 4, 2017, the presidents of Toyota and Mazda held a joint press conference and announced they had formed a joint-venture to construct a $1.6 billion manufacturing plant in the United States. US governors and their economic development chiefs were hot on the trail of a prize that promised 4,000 direct jobs to the winning state. The Project tackles this high-profile search in two parts. First we speak to Dean Barber, Principal at Barber Business Advisors for his take on the Toyota/Mazda Project and where it will land. But we also share the findings of a DCI survey of 70 site selection consultants for their best guess at the winning state.

In May 2017, India-based IT consulting firm Infosys announced plans to hire 10,000 workers across four new innovation and technology hubs in the U.S. The first hub was announced for Indianapolis in May and, in July, it was announced that the second hub would go to Wake County, North Carolina. To get the full story behind Infosys' decision to bring 2,000 jobs to North Carolina's Research Triangle region, we talked to Ravi Kumar, President and Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Infosys, North Carolina Senator Jay Chaudhuri and Chris Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC).

On Wednesday, July 26, Foxconn announced its decision to build a $10 billion manufacturing plant in Wisconsin with the promise to create at least 3,000 jobs. In return, the Taiwanese company will receive $3 billion in incentives from the State of Wisconsin. From the moment the announcement was made in the East Room of the White House, it has caused a bit of a stir in the economic development community. Given that the major players in the decision weren't able to speak with us, we queried a range of smart people – some on-the-record and some off-the-record – to bring you this special episode of "The Project."

With over 300 employees and facilities in Edmonton and Prince Edward Island, Canada, The Little Potato Company isn't exactly small potatoes. The company has experienced double-digit growth since 2012 and finally decided it was time to set-up its first major facility in the United States. Sanford Gleddie, a company Vice President who had never conducted a site location search in his life, raised his hand and was charged with finding a U.S. headquarters for the company. And his search led him to the state of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

This week, we bring you a new sub-series called "The Big Deal," which takes a look at some of the biggest economic development deals in history and how they impacted communities. We start with BMW's decision to bring its first facility outside of Germany to Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1992. To get the full story, we talked to Douglas Woodward, an economist with the University of South Carolina, Bobby Hitt, a former BMW staffer who became the Secretary of the South Carolina Department of Commerce in 2011, and Wayne Sterling, a legendary economic developer who managed the BMW project 25 years ago. Listen on to learn how Governor Carroll Campbell convinced BMW's Chairman to reverse an initial decision to locate the plant in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Shandong Ruyi Technology Group is a privately-held textile manufacturer based in China that employs 20,000 people around the globe. The company already had operations everywhere from Japan to Italy, but determined in 2015 that it was time to set up a major manufacturing facility in North America. They "followed the cotton," their primary natural resource, to Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina, but ultimately chose a location in Arkansas – a state that barely made it on their short list, but impressed the company's Chairman and his team with their responsiveness and tenacity. We spoke with two key players to get the full story: Jane Liu, a company legal advisor who was a key player guiding the company's site selection process, and Danny Games, Deputy Director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

On Thursday, June 29th, AETNA, Inc., a Fortune 50 insurance giant, announced a decision that had been months in the making. The company would relocate its corporate headquarters from Hartford, Connecticut, the company's home base for 146 years, to New York City. On the day after the announcement, we set-up a conference call with two highly-respected site selection consultants to get their take on AETNA's decision. You'll hear from Larry Gigerich, Managing Director of Ginovus and Jay Biggins, Executive Managing Director of Biggins Lacy Shapiro, another highly respected site consulting firm. Both firms are members of the Site Selectors Guild.