When Toyota needed a location to build its V8 engine for the full-sized Tundra pickup, the Japanese automaker went to the place where they built the rocket engines that took men to the moon: Huntsville, Ala.
      Toyota selected a 200-acre (81-hectare) site in Huntsville for its first plant outside of Japan to manufacture these motors. The company will invest $220 million in the 300,000-sq.-ft. (27,900-sq.-m.) machining and assembly plant that will employ 350 people.
      "Toyota appreciates the opportunity to do business in Alabama," says Toyota Motor Corp. President Fujio Cho. "We know we will find people of the highest caliber here, who have the skills, the intelligence and the enthusiasm to become a successful Toyota team."
      The Feb. 7, 2001, announcement signals a victory for two government initiatives aimed at boosting economic development. The 400-acre (37-hectare) North Huntsville Industrial Park, which was purchased by the city in 1999 to spur development, will become the home of the Toyota engine plant in 2003.
      The work force for the factory will be supplied by the Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT) program, which will begin recruitment, screening and pre-employment training for the facility in 2003. Production is expected to begin in the summer of that year.
      AIDT was established to recruit and train the type of highly skilled work force being sought by companies in the new economy. Since 1995, AIDT has played a pivotal role in reshaping Alabama's economy by serving the needs of scores of automotive industry employers.
      Today, AIDT is an integral part of Alabama's automotive manufacturing sector, providing pre-employment, on-the-job, management and new skills training programs, along with trainee recruitment and screening. The programs are delivered on-site through mobile training units customized to meet company needs.
      The results speak for themselves. Last year, Alabama secured a $600 million expansion for Mercedes-Benz in Vance and a $440 million Honda plant that will make Odyssey minivans and engines in Lincoln. Construction of the Mercedes M-Class sport utility vehicle is a $1.3 billion industry in Alabama, with an additional $1 billion spent on automotive supplies in Alabama every year. Much of this growth has stemmed from the success of the Mercedes plant in Vance, the company's first passenger vehicle plant built outside of Germany. The M-Class SUV has received more than 40 industry awards, and consumer demand resulted in plant expansions in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
      "The Alabama plant has been in operation only three years, and yet in that short time it has established itself as a world-class production site for Mercedes-Benz," says Helmut Petri, head of worldwide production for Mercedes. With the expansion, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International will employ 4,000 workers and produce 160,000 vehicles every year. Its total investment at the plant will increase to $1 billion.
      That doesn't mean Alabama officials are content with the state's progress. Gov. Don Siegelman recently announced that he wants to adopt a regional approach to economic development, similar to the way it is done in Georgia. The Alabama Development Office, the state's industrial recruitment agency, has signed a contract with J. Mac Holladay's Market Street Services in Atlanta to do a statewide assessment of Alabama's regional economic development needs. Holladay's firm did the same thing for Georgia and North Carolina, says Jim Hayes, acting director of the Alabama Development Office.
      Alabama tried a similar approach in the early 1990s, but the state abandoned the initiative after it became bogged down in political patronage, says Tom Meredith, chairman of the Alabama Commerce Commission and chancellor of the University of Alabama System.
      Gov. Siegelman would like to improve on a track record that "The State of the South 2000" report says has produced "uneven progress" for Alabama. "The state has experienced significant job growth since the end of the 1970s -- but its growth remains below the national rate," the report states.
      The good news for Alabama is that much of its job growth in the late 1990s came in high-paying automotive manufacturing jobs and the expanding high-tech clusters of Huntsville and Birmingham. In information technology jobs and professional, scientific and technical jobs, Alabama scores above average in the South, according to the study.
      Moreover, an influx of international money has made Alabama more competitive. "Foreign capital helped Alabama improve its industry mix, with the number of foreign-owned enterprises rising from around 100 in 1977 to more than 600 in 1997," the report states. "Those 600 firms had combined assets of around $13 billion. Just over 3 percent of Alabama's total private employment are in foreign-owned companies. In manufacturing, however, nearly 11 percent of Alabama's jobs are in foreign-owned concerns."