< Previous24 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION that doesn’t fit anymore. There needs to be some new thinking here. There is a supply of workers out there, and it needs to be recognized.” Creating Risk Through Risk Avoidance Stanger offers up an anecdote that serves to illustrate his thinking. “I was talking recently to a CIO in Nashville. She’s been in the security industry for about 15 years doing heavy-duty stuff. She told me she was looking at the description for an entry-level security job and figured that even she couldn’t get it. It was a job that pays a third of what she makes and requires less than a third of what her experience is.” What’s happening, Stanger believes, “is that we’re over-spec-ing and over-preparing these job descriptions because it’s a risk-oriented job. In the end, we’re taking on more risk because we’re not getting the employees we need.” Drawing from data provided by Lightcast, Stanger says that half or more of postings for cybersecurity analysts require at least a bachelor’s degree. “That’s a problem,” he says. And the “crisis” extends, he believes, to properly deploying the talent that a company might eventually manage to land. “There are a lot of organizations out there that are kind of like the dog that caught the car. What do you do when you catch it? A lot of them,” he believes, “are still a little leery about technology to begin with. Trying to secure that technology, utilizing people who understand both the business and the technology, can be very intimidating.” Even as organizations have come to embrace digital transformation, many, Stanger believes, still tend to approach security almost grudgingly. “It’s always wonderful to talk about proactive security,” he says, “but what hasn’t much changed is that we’re still treating security as a cleanup kind of issue. What I see is organizations that are more mature in their approach do far better in growing their business than ones who just kind of say, ‘Well, the security folks will clean up the mess afterwards.’” SITE SELECTION JULY 2023 25 AI to the Rescue? e increasing adoption of artifi cial intelligence, Stanger believes, could be a net-plus for organizations that are serious about cybersecurity. “AI,” he says, “is going to solve a lot of problems. It’s a force multiplier. It’s very good at doing the kinds of repetitive tasks that tend to tie down cybersecurity professionals and thus reduce their productivity. If AI can take care of that % of the work that is repetitive, then I can put together a team of fi ve developers that can handle the remaining % and do so much more productively. It’s going to allow them to punch above their weight.” Still, AI does not represent a panacea, especially since cyber criminals enjoy access to it, as well. “ ese aren’t hoodie-wearing teenagers,” says Stanger. “ ese are very sophisticated organizations that have HR policies, time off and things like that. So, it’s going to come down to who trains their AI the best. It’s defi nitely spy versus spy. It’s going to be about who gets there fi rst, whether for good or for evil.” ere needs to be some new thinking here. ere is a supply of workers out there, and it needs to be recognized.” — Dr. James Stanger , Chief Technology Evangelist, CompTIA ere needs to be some new thinking here. ere is a INVESTMENT PROFILE: PFLUGERVILLE FROM FARM TO FAB Tollway opens Pfl ugerville to mega-projects and more. T elling the story of Pfl ugerville, Texas, is what John Garrett does best. He is so sold on this booming northeast Austin suburb of , people that he has built an entire business around it. is media entrepreneur moved his company to Pfl ugerville in when he built the headquarters for Community Impact News. It has been growing ever since. “When we built out here in , there was hardly anyone here,” he says. “My biggest concern was workforce. We have been so blessed with all the incredible talent who want to be closer to home. Pfl ugerville gave us the opportunity to do that.” So did a new toll road. While most people see toll roads as little more than an extra transportation expense, Garrett and other area company leaders view State Highway as an express lane to business growth and better economic times for all. e opening of SH has opened an entire new corridor for growth in Greater Austin, say Garrett and others. “Transportation here is awesome,” says Garrett. “ e connection to Highway is great. We can get to downtown Austin in minutes. We can get to Dallas, Houston and San Antonio easily. We have a printing plant that sends our papers to post offi ces all around Texas. We are doing fantastic. We are growing. We are unique in the industry.” While other media companies retrench, consolidate or go out of business altogether, Community Impact News is bursting at the seams. “We deliver . million newspapers around Texas and we now have , daily email subscribers. We are hyper-local,” says Garrett. “We have high- quality content. We are going to be OK. We turned our company from being a monthly to being a daily. When something organically takes off , you just have to go all in.” Garrett says all areas of Greater Austin are bustling with growth. “If you look at the growth around Austin, everywhere from northwest Liberty Hill and Leander to Georgetown and Round Rock, all parts of the metro area are booming. Pfl ugerville is growing south toward the Austin airport and the Tesla Gigafactory. Out east is Manor, and Elgin and by RON STARNER ron.starner@siteselection.com 26 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION Ironwood Realty buildings in the Lakeside Meadows industrial park just off State Highway 130 in Pfl ugerville, Texas. Photo courtesy of Ironwood Realty PartnersThis Investment Profi le was prepared under the auspices of the Pfl ugerville Community Development Corporation. For more information, contact Veronica Ramirez at veronicar@pfdevelopment.com. On the web, go to www.pfdevelopment.com. SITE SELECTION JULY 2023 27 Bastrop are booming. at is all new growth. You see all that land east of Highway . en it grows north up to Temple.” A Pipeline Full of Projects Garrett is not the only community leader capitalizing on these good economic times. So too is Bob Rice, president and founder of Ironwood Realty Partners. Rice and his team of industrial real estate experts built four large industrial facilities just off SH at Lakeside Meadows in Pfl ugerville, and they plan to build more. “I moved to Texas shortly after graduating from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in marketing over years ago, and I haven’t looked back since,” says Rice. “Central Texas is absolutely booming right now, and the northern suburbs of Greater Austin like Pfl ugerville are leading the charge.” Since founding Ironwood, Rice has completed numerous development projects in both North and Central Texas. Since , he has developed more than million square feet of new industrial property and has another million square feet in the pipeline. His principal real estate project is the Synergy Crossing Logistics Park in Fort Worth/Alliance, but Pfl ugerville has captured his attention now. “We are very bullish on Pfl ugerville right now,” he notes. “We really like working with Amy Madison and her team at the Pfl ugerville Community Development Corporation.” Welcome to the ‘Mega-Tex Corridor’ Madison, Executive Director of the PCDC, says the sky’s the limit for the growth potential of the SH Corridor. “ is area has gone from ‘Pfarm to Pfab(ulous)’ in just years,” says Madison. “What used to be farmland is now home for a .-million-square-foot Amazon facility and just outside Pfl ugerville to the south, a Tesla Gigafactory and to the north a second Samsung semiconductor facility. Pfl ugerville is rapidly emerging as the D printing capital of Texas; and with the new expanding tollway, more growth is sure to follow in what I like to call the ‘Mega-Tex Corridor.’ ” e numbers back her up. In , Pfl ugerville had a population of , people. By , that number had climbed to ,. Ten years later, the city boasted a population of ,. Today, it is estimated that the city has , residents; and it is expected to add tens of thousands more citizens over the next years. According to Madison, the community is planning to host a regional SH- Corridor Summit in January to talk about future growth opportunities in the corridor. For more information and to register for the summit, go to www.pfdevelopment.com. Central Texas is absolutely booming right now, and the northern suburbs of Greater Austin like Pfl ugerville are leading the charge.” — Bob Rice , Founder and President, Ironwood Realty Partners Central Texas is absolutely booming A new interchange connects State Highway 130 motorists with Interstate 35 and brings tons of new commerce to Pfl ugerville daily. Photo courtesy of Pfl ugerville Community Development Corporation28 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION When in France ere’s no better place to catch up with the activities of French aerospace giants than at the Paris Air Show. T he International Aeronautics and Space Exhibition — known to most of us common folks as the Paris Air Show — may be the event most universally targeted by both global industry and the areas around the world trying to attract that global industry’s operations and products. e th edition of the event took place at the Paris-Le Bourget exhibition venue in late June. Here’s a look at some of the news emanating from Paris and how it intersects with corporate growth around the world — even from French companies alone. Safran Group Safran’s lead card is nothing less than decarbonizing aviation. Its vision involves a mix of fuel cells, all-electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion. And its facility investments are proceeding accordingly. As the festivities in Paris commenced with fl ight demonstrations, aircraft rollouts and the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, Safran announced that Safran Electrical & Power will install two automated production lines each at its sites in Niort, France (west-central France) and Pitstone, Great Britain, for its ENGINeUS electric motors. “ is high-volume production model, inspired by the automotive sector, will enable , motors to be manufactured per year from to serve the booming electric and hybrid aviation markets,” the company said. e site in Niort is the company’s electrical systems center of excellence, while Pitstone is its rotating machines center of excellence. e Pitstone site will be home to the automatic production lines for rotors and stators — the rotating machines at the heart of the motors — while the Niort site will handle the automatic production of power electronics and fi nal motor assembly. Each line will include eight modular and adaptable workstations By ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com AEROSPACE Flanked by Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury (left) and Daher Group Chairman Patrick Daher, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived to inaugurate the Paris Air Show in June. Photo by Gilles Rolle © SIAE 202330 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION “capable of carrying out different screwing, gluing and pressing operations simultaneously.” In Niort, the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) is providing a 50% investment, and special machines specialist Baron is developing the automated lines and the workstations. In Pitstone, the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) has a 50% stake, and the Adelphi group will supply the lines and the workstations. “Two British universities — the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University — are also providing their expertise in implementing co- engineering methods,” Safran said, noting that five aircraft manufacturers and startups — VoltAero, Aura Aero, Bye Aerospace, Diamond Aircraft and CAE — have already selected ENGINeUS electric motors to equip their 100% electric or hybrid aircraft for uses ranging from air taxis to training and commuter aircraft. “We have chosen to create our future automated lines of electric motors in Niort and Pitstone because these facilities are a perfect fit with our industrial plan,” said Bruno Bellanger, executive vice president and general manager of the power division of Safran Electrical & Power. “We are currently on the home stretch in obtaining final certification from the air authorities. This state-of- the-art equipment is one of the essential building blocks in Safran’s decarbonization strategy.” Daher Group Safran is not alone in pursuit of this goal. Daher Group says it has placed the “innovation to decarbonize” at the heart of its “Take off 2027” strategic plan. In an announcement at the show, the 160-year-old company said that through its four complementary businesses in the aeronautics value chain — aircraft manufacturer, manufacturing, industrial services and logistics — “Daher intends to make a significant contribution to the efforts of the entire industrial sectors in which it is present. The company’s objectives already have translated into a strong investment in R&D projects, the budget of which has quadrupled since the previous strategic plan.” Daher aims to do so via three innovation centers: Shap’in, based at the company’s regional tech center in Nantes, for the design of lighter, more efficient and recyclable aeronautical structures; Log’in, based in Toulouse, to reduce the environmental footprint of industrial logistics; and Fly’in, based in Tarbes, dedicated to the hybrid and carbon-free aircraft of tomorrow. “The idea,” says the company, “is to contribute — hand in hand with partners, customers and startups — to the design of solutions leading to a ‘Net Zero’ impact by 2050, with a first significant step from 2035, aligned with the Paris Agreement on climate change.” Another tool for innovation at Daher is a new open innovation program it launched at this year’s show called Imagineering by Daher, based on the company’s experience with the DaherLab project launched in 2014, which the company says already has facilitated the emergence of more than 100 manufacturing projects. Among Daher’s manufacturing facility investments tracked by Site Selection’s Conway Projects Database in recent years are a 156,000-sq.- ft. project in Montréal, Québec; a 34,000-sq.-ft. project in Santiago in the Mexican aerospace cluster in Querétaro; and a $17.5 million, 250-job facility in Tangier, Morocco. Airbus More than 2,500 nacelles produced by Safran France’s own Safran Group always has a prominent place on the agenda and the exhibit floor at the Paris Air Show. Photo © SIAE 2023 Gilles ROLLE Country State City India Telangana Hyderabad France Aquitaine Bordeaux Mexico Chihuahua Chihuahua India Telangana Hyderabad India Maharashtra Mumbai Major Recent Facility Investments by Safran Group source for charts: Conway Projects Database32 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION Nacelles are currently in service on Airbus A320neo aircraft that are powered by CFM International’s LEAP-1A engines. It’s just one of many cross- company connections powering growth at global giants like Airbus, which recently announced R&D collaboration with STMicroelectronics (which has major operations in France) on power electronics for aircraft electrification. Those partnerships extend well beyond Europe. In April, during a French state visit to China and witnessed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Macron, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury signed with the Tianjin Free Trade Zone Investment Company Ltd., and Aviation Industry Corporation of China Ltd., an agreement to expand A320 Family final assembly capacity with a second line at its Tianjin site. The agreement will contribute to Airbus’ overall rate objective of 75 aircraft per month in 2026 throughout its global production network. A separate MoU was signed pledging cooperation in the production, competitive application and common standards formulation for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Airbus entered the Chinese market in 1985 when an A310 was first delivered to China Eastern Airlines. By the end of the first quarter 2023, the Airbus in service fleet in China had risen to over 2,100 aircraft, representing more than 50% of the market. “Over the next 20 years, China’s air traffic is forecast to grow at 5.3% annually, significantly faster than the world average of 3.6%,” Airbus stated on the occasion of the signing. “This will lead to a demand for 8,420 passenger and freighter aircraft between now and 2041, representing more than 20% of the world’s total demand for around 39,500 new aircraft in the next 20 years.” As one might expect with that sort of volume, Airbus earlier this year said it would construct an aircraft servicing and recycling center in Chengdu, China. The new facility is expected to open by 2024. But Airbus has its mind on much more than China as it ramps up hiring. “In 2022 we welcomed more than 13,000 new employees within Team Airbus around the world, in a complex environment which tested our resilience and attractiveness as a global employer,” said Thierry Baril, chief human resources & workplace officer of Airbus, in January. “Following the success of our recruitment last year, we will hire over 13,000 employees again in 2023.” Over 9,000 of those posts will be in Europe. The company employs more than 130,000 people across its worldwide businesses. Dassault Aviation Group A recent survey by Swedish research organization Universum found Dassault is the fourth most preferred employer by French engineering students. As part of its plan to recruit more than 1,000 new employees this year at all sites and all professions, with and without experience, Dassault planned a series of “job dating” events at the Paris Air Show this year. Country State City Germany Bavaria Taufkirchen China Shandong Qingdao United Kingdom England London United States Alabama Mobile (2) United States Virginia Ashburn United Kingdom Wales Deeside Canada Quebec Mirabel United Kingdom England Broughton Astley Hungary Bekes County Gyula China Sichuan Chengdu Major Recent Facility Investments by Airbus In March, Airbus delivered the first A321neo aircraft assembled at its Final Assembly Line Asia (FAL Tianjin) to China’s Juneyao Air in Tianjin. CREDIT: Photo courtesy of AirbusAmong the innovations taking off at Dassault is the launch of a new apprentice program for mechanics at the company’s site in Argonay. But the company’s emphasis on skills training goes well beyond its home country. At the public vocational high school in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, last June, the company celebrated the first 19 graduates of its Aeronautical Structure & Equipment Fitter vocational program, developed by the Dassault Skill Academy near a site operated by Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd. (DRAL). Ninety percent of the students were recruited at Indian aerospace employers DRAL, TASL, Indamer and Safran. A second graduating class of 40 students graduated in September 2022. “By mid-2024, the French teachers will have been replaced by three Indian teachers, and two Indian instructors will have prepared the future educators involved in the roll- out to other vocational high schools,” the company said. In May the company celebrated 60 years of its Falcon business jet line, famously endorsed by Charles Lindbergh for Pan Am at its original manufacturing site in France in 1963. Ten years later, FedEx Founder Fred Smith launched his company with a fleet of 33 Falcon 20s modified with a large cargo door. Today, Dassault Falcon Jet in Teterboro, New Jersey, represents and supports Falcons in the U.S. and throughout the Western Hemisphere. Country State City United States Arkansas Little Rock Australia Northern Territory Darwin United States Florida Melbourne Ireland Munster Cork Brazil Sao Paulo Sorocaba India Nagpur Division Nagpur Major Recent Facility Investments by DassaultNext >