< Previous38 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NINVESTMENT PROFILE:NORTHWEST OHIOOn the MakeNorthwest Ohio is a mecca for manufacturing.From solar panels to steel, robotics to major appliances, automobiles to footballs, the seventeen counties of Northwest Ohio represent the concentrated essence of advanced, American manufacturing. e superlatives speak for themselves. Northwest Ohio has the nation’s most prolifi c solar panel facility, its most profi table steel mill and the world’s biggest dishwasher plant. It’s home to the giant FCA automotive factory that makes the popular Jeep Wrangler. For good measure, every football made by Wilson Sporting Goods, the offi cial provider for the NFL and NCAA, is produced in the small town of Ada in Hardin County. e Toledo/Northwest Ohio region has been at the heart of industrial activity since its foundation, and now has taken its place at the forefront of high-tech, advanced technologies. e region’s manufacturing landscape is more diverse now than ever.Home Grown SolarFor evidence, look no further than First Solar, a company founded in Perrysburg in , prior to the astronomical growth of the solar power industry. First Solar, which calls itself the largest U.S. solar module manufacturer, makes solar panels for commercial, industrial and utility-scale uses. Its products are used by large utility solar farms, on public buildings and at off -grid industrial sites.In April, First Solar announced that it will spend $ million to build a new solar panel factory in Lake Township, creating jobs. e new factory will produce First Solar’s next-generation Series solar panel technology. Already one of the world’s largest solar energy companies, with manufacturing facilities in Malaysia and Vietnam, First Solar says the new investment will triple its domestic capacity.Why build in Ohio, rather than overseas? “For one thing, we have our roots in the region’s glass industry,” says Mike Koralewski, First Solar’s senior vice president of global manufacturing. “Toledo has a long history of being a glass hub for the world really. A lot of technologies have grown out of here over the past decades.“ e U.S. solar market is growing at a very large rate,” Koralewski adds, “and the U.S. is currently our largest market. Also, there have been several changes at the federal level that have impacted our decision. Most recently, it’s the corporate tax policy that makes manufacturing in the U.S. more attractive and more comparable to the countries overseas that we have looked at.”by G ARY DAUGHTERSgar y.daug hter s @ site s ele c tion.c omAbove: Cleveland-Cliffs selected Toledo as the site for a $700-million hot-briquetted iron plant to supply the Great Lakes steel industry.Photo courtesy of Cleveland-Cliffs S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 39This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of the Regional Growth Partnership. For more information, contact John Gibney at gibney@rgp.org. On the web, go to www.rgp.org.First Solar’s expansion calls for a -million-sq.-ft. facility a short distance from the company’s fl agship Perrysburg site, currently considered the country’s most prolifi c solar panel plant. Construction on the new facility began in June, with full production expected to commence in late . Koralewski says that even in a region of low unemployment, he’s confi dent about fi lling the hundreds of staff positions the new plant will create, all the way from fl oor operators to research scientists and support staff .“ e fact of the matter,” he says, “is that Northwest Ohio has a very high manufacturing base. ere’s a lot of good skill sets that we can leverage from many of the schools and industry to help get a very good workforce.”Making the Case e region’s manufacturing workforce is among the strong suits that spurred a decision by Cleveland-based Cleveland-Cliff s, Inc., to choose Toledo as the location for a $-million hot briquetted iron (HBI) plant now under construction at a site on the Maumee River.“ e skills are there,” says Cliff Smith, the company’s executive vice president for business development. “We’ve been able to build our team from scratch essentially, and percent is going to be hired locally. We’re extremely pleased about the depth of leadership that we’ve been able to recruit locally.” e Cleveland-Cliff s plant will generate . million tons of hot-briquetted iron a year for steel manufacturers in the Great Lakes region once it begins operations in . ose manufacturers, many of which supply the automotive industry, are currently supplied by pig iron from Russia, Ukraine and Brazil.“ is is a displacement of pig iron that is coming into the United States from those three countries,” says Smith. “We are going to be the sole producer in the Great Lakes. One of the reasons we selected Toledo is because if you take a string, put one end on Toledo and swing it around miles in each direction, you will hit or electric arc furnaces” used in producing steel, says Smith. “We’ll have our raw materials stockpiled in Toledo and be able to service all of our customers year-round in a shorter time frame with no import duties and no threat of tariff s.”Asked to off er other reasons for selecting Toledo, Smith recites a compelling list:• Access to water and rail transport• Competitive power rates• Clear and consistent environmental regulations• A wealth of construction workers• Pro-business environment• Local and state incentives.On the subject of environmental regulations, Smith salutes the state of Ohio.“One of the key things for us in selecting Toledo was the clarity of the Ohio EPA regulatory regime for bringing on such a facility. e policies are clear. Sometimes you hear about folks who are tied up in the permitting process forever. But targeting a region that has a manufacturing history was huge for us in terms of getting the right permits and moving forward with construction.”Perhaps the biggest factor, says Smith, was fi nding a home whose mindset is tied to industry.“We were looking for a region that would be receptive to an industrial facility,” Smith says. “Our partners, including the city of Toledo, the Lucas County Port Authority and Jobs Ohio, were all understanding of the fact that this is a manufacturing facility. We didn’t want to impose ourselves on a community that didn’t want us. With our partners, we found offi cials that wanted us to be part of the community. at was very key.” Photo courtesy of First SolarNorthwest Ohio has a very high manufacturing base.”— Mike Koralewski, Senior Vice President of Global Manufacturing, First SolarNorthwest Ohio has ASIA40 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NIwas getting my hair cut in a Kuala Lumpur barbershop two days after May’s electoral rebellion. It was perhaps the worst haircut I’ve ever had, because my excited barber couldn’t stop gushing with pride over the overnight transformation he and his countrymen had just delivered.I was barely seated when, unprompted, he proclaimed, “Today I am proud to be a Malaysian again!”From there he never stopped talking. My hair deeply regretted his joyous distraction. My soul, however, was entirely captivated by the boundless pride radiating forth from a human being awash with hope and renewed faith in the future. omas Jeff erson once said that “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.” If by “little,” Jeff erson maybe meant “personal” or “individual,” then the people of Malaysia just staged a little rebellion. And it is a very good thing indeed.Although peaceful, this revolution did not come easy. In the people thought they had enough votes to oust an unpopular prime minister who had become embroiled in corruption scandals, only to see countless votes “disappear.” Votes evaporated during mysterious power outages that plunged polling stations across the country into inexplicable darkness. Other votes were somehow lost in transit from polling stations to central collection. is time the people were prepared. When the expected power outages struck polling stations, citizens pulled their cars up to the windows and turned on their headlights, while others stood outside fi lming poll offi cials on their cellphones.Volunteers marched with the votes from the polling stations to central collection to ensure they all made it. And as a participatory bonus, hundreds of Malaysians living abroad collected “postal votes” and fl ew them home to be counted.Malaysians had had enough, and, acting together, were going to make sure every vote was counted this time around.How’d We Get Here?Malaysia’s former prime minister, Najib Razak, is alleged to have been corrupt on a mind-boggling scale. Once seen as a reformer, his time in power found him embroiled in a corruption scandal for years. His credibility — and Malaysia’s with it — crumbled after e Wall Street Journal reported on a multi-billion dollar scandal involving a $-million transfer from the MDB state fund — a project designed to attract foreign direct investment — directly into Najib’s private bank account. e fund is being investigated by the U.S. and several other countries for alleged cross-border embezzlement and money laundering. ( e U.S. Department of Justice alleges $. billion was stolen from MDB by associates of Najib, and is working to recover $. billion it said was used to buy assets in the United States.)Najib responded by imposing repressive security measures and stoking ethnic tensions to shore up his base. And for good measure he had the head of the opposition party, former deputy prime by ADAM JONE S -K ELLE Ye ditor @ site s ele c tion.c omIexcited barber couldn’t stop gushing with pride I40 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO N S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 41minister Anwar Ibrahim, convicted of sodomy and imprisoned. It was right out of the third-world strongman playbook, and most outside observers believed it was autocratically eff ective enough to carry him through yet another sketchy election. en that quiet little revolution changed everything.The Force Is StrongTo help ensure that all this wasn’t for naught, Malaysia’s new prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, created the Malaysian Council of Eminent Persons, also called the Council of Elders, a group comprising this Southeast Asian nation’s most respected business minds tasked with charting the future of Malaysia’s economy. Formal titles notwithstanding, delighted Malaysian citizens immediately set to calling them the Jedi Council. e group includes a former fi nance minister, an ex-central bank governor, a billionaire businessman, a prominent economist and a former chief executive of a state oil company. eir top priorities include creating a climate conducive to attracting FDI, reintroducing a sales tax to take the place of a -percent consumption e U.S. Department of Justice alleges $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by associates of Najib, and is working to recover $1.7 billion itsaid was used to buyassets in theUnited States.Malaysians have taken to calling the Council of Elders created by new Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (pictured) the Jedi Council.Photo art by Sean Scantland S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 43levy that was scrapped immediately after the election, reinstating fuel subsidies, reviewing large-scale government projects and raising minimum wages.Always in Motion Is the FutureIn , Transparency International dropped Malaysia seven spots to No. in its global corruption index, the third straight year Malaysia’s standing has fallen. Malaysia’s GDP growth sputtered as corruption inhibited foreign direct investment into the country. Both those stats are likely to change next year. Here are a few of the ways the government plans to get there:• e new government plans to reduce the role of government in the economy — music to investors’ ears.• at government, avowedly pro-business, plans to enact new economic incentives to drive investment and attract FDI. • ey have already abolished the goods and services tax (GST) and replaced it with a new streamlined sales tax (SST).• ey have announced a comprehensive tax review, which may include changes to corporate tax rates and personal income rates.A primary stated goal is to put more money back in the hands of consumers to address social and economic well-being.Another aim is to reverse a trend in bias towards Chinese investments to become more selective while continuing to pursue and attract more high-tech investments from the U.S., Europe and Japan.My friend Datuk Phang Ah Tong, former deputy CEO of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), is broadly optimistic, and points to the emphasis on creating a safe and attractive environment for FDI as a bellwether of sound policy.“Feedback from the industry is positive,” Phang said. “ ey believe the new government will do a better job in creating a more conducive business environment for investors, with new measures being introduced to make Malaysia more competitive vis-a-vis other countries in the region. e business community is very positive with the appointment of the new fi nance minister [Lim Guan Eng]. He was the chief minister of Penang and he had a good track record while managing both the state and promoting investments.”The Force Is With ThemAnd so Malaysia is transformed. To almost universal surprise, Malaysia now stands as a beacon of hope to the rest of the world. To citizens of dominant Western nations, to those struggling for basic resources in forgotten third-world backwaters, Malaysians have shown that oppression and corruption can be beaten back by the collective will of the righteous. I’ve been visiting and doing business in Malaysia for a dozen years, and have long been a believer in the potential of this emerging market. But being there right after the election, feeling the pride and optimism of the people, I couldn’t help but be swept up in the excitement. It was idealism made fact. I’ve never been more inspired in my life. e people of Malaysia fought as one. ey faced down the powerful, rejected the entrenched system. ey stood together, risked all, and won their country back. Hope is a powerful currency. Spent wisely, it changes history. So let us hope. e real work begins now.Being there right after the election, feeling the pride and optimism of the people, I couldn’t help but be swept up in the excitement. It was idealism made fact. I’ve never been more inspired in my life.INVESTMENT PROFILE:ORLANDO UTILITIES COMMISSION44 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NA PLACE TO EXCELOUC’s visionary mindset is as central as its water and power to making Metro Orlando attractive to top performers like the USTA and KPMG.Despite stiff competition from North Carolina, Texas, Arizona and other cities in Florida, the Orlando area captured the $-million United States Tennis Association (USTA) -acre National Campus project prize because of two things, says Kurt Kamperman, the chief executive of the national campus, beginning with “the vision that our partner Tavistock Group had for Lake Nona. We wanted to be part of a community that was focused on innovation, forward thinking and health and wellness.” e second intangible, he says, was how collaborative the Lake Nona and Orlando business community is. One of the partners was the team at OUC — the Orlando Utilities Commission — established years ago, and better known today as OUC— e Reliable One.OUC provides electric and water services to , accounts in Orlando, St. Cloud and parts of unincorporated Orange and Osceola counties. e City of Orlando’s initial $. million investment in OUC nearly a century ago has grown into a utility with more than $. billion in assets, more than . trillion kilowatt-hours per year in electric power sales, and billion gallons a year in sales of the best-tasting water in Florida.“OUC creates strategic partnerships with our customers, and it goes beyond just providing electricity and water,” says Roseann Harrington, vice president, marketing, communications and community relations for OUC and one of the creators of its economic development team. A veteran OUC leader, she was personally involved in attracting not only the USTA campus, but projects from the likes of Amazon, Crystal Geyser and Lockheed Martin. “We’re with you every step of the way, even after you open your doors.”by ADAM BRUNSadam.br uns @ site s ele c tion.c om44 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NAfter hosting more than 200,000 visitors in its rst year, the $60-million USTA National Campus will host the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships in 2019 and 2021.Photo by Manuela Davies courtesy of USTAThis Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of OUC—The Reliable One. For more information, contact Economic Development Manager Bob Collins at 407-466-7374 orRCollins@ouc.com, or visit oucpowersgrowth.com. S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 45 S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 45A PLACE TO EXCELSustainability and Growth Go Together“Many cities talk the talk,” says Kamperman. “But in Lake Nona/Orlando, collaboration is an intrinsic part of the fabric of the business community. We also knew we were coming to a Lake Nona community that was at the very beginning of an incredible growth spurt that we wanted to be a part of,” he says. “Our local partnerships with OUC, Nemours, UCF and others played a significant role.”OUC’s innovation mindset is reflected in things like treating water with ozone to reduce the need for chlorine; and investing in new solar power generation and electric-vehicle infrastructure — all serving to further enhance the sustainability profile of the region. Even the OUC headquarters is LEED-Gold certified. New power transmission and water main expansions are on the way. And at Lake Nona, a state-of-the-art chilled water complex is in place to handle the growth in an area now home to more than 12,000 residents and more than 10 million sq. ft. of residential and commercial facilities. That includes the $2-billion Medical City life sciences cluster, anchored by the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.That sort of savvy has helped grow the area’s high-tech modeling and simulation sector, as well as attract investments in advanced manufacturing, cleantech, aerospace and defense.The talent is attracted too. In 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Orange County, Florida, was the 12th-fastest-growing county in the nation, welcoming more than 25,000 people from July 2016 to July 2017 to a metro area now boasting 2.6 million people.The Right Conditions for Takeoff“Obviously climate was an important consideration, as well as the proximity to an airport that was accessible to most U.S. cities,” says the USTA’s Kurt Kamperman. Orlando International Airport serves 45 million passengers annually and a fast-growing roster of more than 230 destinations. The airport and OUC helped attract another campus 500 yards away from the USTA’s: KPMG’s $400-million, 55-acre world training headquarters, which will bring thousands of KPMG professionals from all over the world every week of the year once it opens in late 2019.As George Tobjy, tax managing director for KPMG, told Site Selection in 2017, OUC was among the partners helping Orlando beat out New York, New Jersey, Charlotte, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Denver for the coveted investment. At the May 2017 groundbreaking, KPMG CEO and Chairman Lynn Doughtie praised the area’s “highly collaborative, forward-thinking environment.”OUC’s Harrington points out that among the 30,000 people a year expected to visit the KPMG center are the firm’s renowned team of global site selection experts. As with USTA and others, OUC’s innovative partnership with KPMG is designed to help them flourish. “We want to be a valuable resource, and help them grow,” she says. “We make it easy to work with OUC, and put everyone together to help customers meet their goals as quickly as possible.”“I’ve lived in a number of areas over my career that were experiencing significant growth, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” says Kamperman. “The growth in Orlando and in particular the Lake Nona area would be hard to fathom if you weren’t seeing it every day. Growth attracts more growth, and any business that looks closely at what is happening here would have to give this area strong consideration as a top prospect.”When they get there, they’ll find OUC already in the arena, and ready to serve. Electric-vehicle and solar-powered mobile-device charging stations, and hydration stations featuring safe, great-tasting H2OUC, are among the ways OUC is helping the USTA enhance its eco-friendly footprint.Photo courtesy of OUCRoseann HarringtonVice President, Marketing, Communications and Community Relations, OUC—The Reliable OneOffi cials on the ground know the state’s challenges and are determined to overcome them.by MARK ARENDmar k .ar end@ site s ele c tion.c omAEROSP ACE46 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NWHY AEROSPACE COMPANIES ARE THRIVING — INYou’ve already read articles about companies leaving California for greener business-climate pastures. is is not one of those. It’s about why companies want — and need — to stay, particularly in the aerospace sector, which for decades has been one of the state’s signature industries. Back when Douglas, later McDonnell Douglas, was making prop airliners and then DC-s, -s and -s in southern California, aerospace was largely aircraft manufacturing. Today, the “space” part of that moniker is where the action is. CALIFORNIAPhoto courtesy SpaceXNext >