Area Spotlights

When Gov. Scott Walker stared down the powerful public employee unions in Wisconsin two years ago, the landmark budget reform legislation did more than place the Badger State on a path to fiscal recovery.

The Texas mystique is real, but its economic dynamism could just as easily be said to come from the distinct characters of its many successful cities.

If America is to fully recover from the Great Recession of 2008-2009, there's an excellent chance that leading the recovery will be a handful of states in the Upper Midwest and South Central regions of the country.

Talk about a vote of confidence. GE Aviation is investing nearly $200 million in four North Carolina sites primarily because of the state's work force.

Could the decade of the 2010's turn out to be the new Golden Era for the Golden State? It may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

Nashville in central Tennessee, Union City in the state's far northwest and several other communities have claimed important new capital investment projects in 2013.

Jasper County, Mo., is the nation's first Certified Work Ready Community (CWRC) - a designation of American College Testing (ACT), the Iowa-based nonprofit organization that administers the ACT college admissions exam taken by more than 1.6 million high school students each year.

Led by the U.S. Small Business Administration's Business Person of the Year for 2012, and picked as Montana's Innovation Company of the Year in August 2012, Simms Fishing Products, captained by President K.C. Walsh, moved into a new 60,000-sq.-ft. (5,574-sq.-m.) headquarters, production and distribution facility in Bozeman last year.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell signed a Declaration of Cooperation with Oregon and Washington on May 24th to expedite the review and permitting of energy generation, power transmission and other vital infrastructure development in the Pacific Northwest.

What do the world's largest retailer, an entrepreneurial steel industry executive and a French jet manufacturer all have in common?

In early January, automotive visionary and entrepreneur Paul Elio announced that his fledgling company Elio Motors would employ 1,500 people in producing Elio's cute, green and ultra-high-mileage three-wheeled car in the giant former General Motors facility in Shreveport that used to produce the intimidating and gas-guzzling Hummer.

Governor Mary Fallin returned from Le Bourget Paris Airshow in June with a commitment from Australian aerospace supplier Ferra Engineering to locate an operation in Grove, in the northeast corner of the Sooner State. The company, which plans to hire 20 engineers, specializes in the custom design, manufacture, assembly and test of aerospace structures and sub-systems. It also produces medical devices for the healthcare industry, as well as components for renewable energy systems.

When Gov. Chris Christie and his family cut the world’s longest ribbon for the grand reopening of the Jersey Shore on May 24 in Seaside Heights, the event signaled more than the return of tourism to New Jersey’s once-devastated coastline.

Business activity in New England in many cases is the equivalent of "musical states" or "musical cities." That is, while there is a healthy amount of new business and business expansion activity in the region, a lot of what is taking place is business consolidation and/or moving existing businesses from state to state or city to city.

The following is excerpted with permission from Dr. George Hammond's March 2013 report in Arizona's Economy, a publication of the Economic and Business Research Center (EBR) at the Eller College of Management, University of Arizona. Dr. Hammond is Associate Director of EBR and Eller Research Professor.

Christopher Prentice represents exactly the kind of company that increasingly is finding a home along U.S. Gulf Coast — high-tech, international and rapidly growing.

Since January 2012 the Kentucky Golden Triangle of Louisville, Lexington and Northern Kentucky has welcomed 120 corporate facility projects to the three metro areas. The triangle is neither equilateral nor Pythagorean, but it might be isosceles: Greater Lexington and Northern Kentucky tally 30 projects each, while Greater Louisville tallies 60. But each side has its points, so to speak. And each gains strength from the other communities in its ambit.

Every time a new Kubota compact tractor speeds off the assembly line in Jefferson, Ga., it’s a reminder of just how multinational commerce has become in the Peach State.

Companies like eBay, Adobe, IM Flash and FireEye are building their facilities in the Beehive State because that's where their honey is — a strong supply of skilled workers, a business climate that encourages and rewards high-tech enterprise growth and the technical infrastructure statewide that is critical to their businesses.

In Site Selection's annual sustainability rankings in 2012, Ohio ranked in the top dozen states in the country for federal brownfield funding.

One fertilizer plant project, in the southwest corner of Indiana, made news in late 2012 because it will happen. Another made news in early 2013, in the same part of the state, because it will not happen.

Site Selection tracked 329 corporate facility projects between July 2011 and December 2012 landing in the dozens of counties lining the Mississippi River. Louisiana led the way among river states.

Cybersecurity is in the national headlines, after serious data incursions, an executive order from the White House and, in February, accusations of data theft from U.S.