"They take a lot of pride in helping to bring a brand new business to the area, stimulate the local economy and create jobs," he says. People here are eager to get on board."īlanchard has raised about $14 million for his venture, mostly from other local business leaders. I must have received over a thousand resumes in response to that ad. "I ran a help-wanted ad in the local paper over a weekend in late October, and I was absolutely overwhelmed. He likes the early response he's received from the local work force. That is even more important now, given the state of our economy."īlanchard also cited the "excellent transportation corridors of Interstates 75 and 70 that help me get my product out to my customers very efficiently." "I worked with folks in the Ohio Department of Development, the City of Troy and the Dayton Development Coalition to create a package of incentives that allow me to have the cost structure I need to enter a mature market. The cored welding wire plant expects to hire 80 workers, making an average wage of $26 to $29 an hour, over five years, says Blanchard. They gave me access to loans and other funding." "The state has been more than generous in terms of an incentive package courting me to build a business in the Dayton area. "As a location for doing business, the Dayton area makes perfect sense," says Andy Blanchard, founder and CEO of RevWires LLC, a startup that is building a $5-million, 90,000-sq.-ft. (8,361-sq.-m.) factory in Troy in the metro area of Dayton, Ohio. RevWires LLC is a startup company that's building a 90,000-sq.-ft. And, as everyone knows, Houston is the energy capital of the country." Also, Texas A&M is very close by and has large departments in various energy sectors. "With NASA in Houston and with Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter in Dallas-Fort Worth, there are a lot of heavy hitters in Texas. "Houston provides a very unique crossroad between offshore technology and aerospace," he says. Wally Lafferty, vice president of technology R&D for Vestas Americas, tells Site Selection that Houston was the logical choice for many reasons. As of 2007, the firm had captured 23 percent of the global wind market. With more than 35,000 wind turbines installed in 63 countries, Vestas leads the world in wind energy production. The $25-million investment creates 148 jobs in wind turbine R&D. The Denmark-based company announced last June that it had selected Houston as the location for its new U.S. Houston's international ties led to one of its biggest recruits of 2008, Vestas Wind Systems A/S. It takes just $50,000 in annual income to be middle class in Houston."īy comparison, noted Moseley, it takes $123,000 to be middle class in New York, $80,000 in Los Angeles, and $63,000 in Chicago. "According to a recent study by the Center for an Urban Future, it takes fewer dollars to be middle class in Houston than it does in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta or Charlotte. "The quality of a place is tied to the affordability of a community," he says. Several factors contributed to Houston's sudden surge to the top of the chart, explains Moseley. metros, trailing Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Houston's 2008 performance is even more remarkable considering that, in 2007, the city ranked fourth among all large U.S. "From November 2007 to November 2008, Houston was the number one job creator in the entire U.S., according to the BLS. "The dominant economic development story of the year was Houston's dramatic success in job creation," says Jeff Moseley, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. 2 with 156 projects, while Chicago came in third with 138. Texas' second largest market, Dallas-Fort Worth, finished No. With 179 corporate real estate deals last year, the 5.7-million-resident Houston area unseated three-year incumbent Chicago to take home the coveted honor. 1 metropolitan area ranking for corporate facility projects from Site Selection. Ig Oil has long been the big money maker in Houston, but the largest city in Texas lured capital from many other industries in 2008, enough to capture the No. Jeff Moseley, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership
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