Perhaps the most intriguing economic development story in Tennessee hearkens back to another era -- when the U.S. and Japan were at war.

      Forty years before Nissan landed in Smyrna, a remote farmland in East Tennessee became the world's largest center of advanced manufacturing. More than 75,000 of America's brightest scientists and engineers relocated with their families to a secret city, now known as Oak Ridge, to help America win World War II.
      These engineers weren't sent there to built cars, however. They were sent to process uranium, using then-state-of-the-art technology, for the Manhattan Project -- the covert operation that produced the world's first atomic bomb.
      Sixty years later, a public-private partnership at Oak Ridge is facilitating the re-industrialization of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's old bomb-making site. The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET) aims to clean up the old DOE property, which has been renamed the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), and turn it into a thriving business and industrial area populated by private industry and free of taxpayer support by 2010.

Tennessee by the Numbers
Population: Largest Metro Areas:   Households: Median Age: Median Gross Rent: Median Mortgage Costs:   Median Household Income: Education (age 25+):   Total Labor Force: Consumer Price Index:	5.5 million Nashville (1.2 million); Memphis (1.1 million); Knoxville (670,000); Chattanooga (453,000). 2.1 million 36.3 $391 $608   $30,897 76% have high school degree; 20% have college degree. 2.6 million 146.2

      The ETTP includes two primary components: Heritage Center, a business park with several million square feet of manufacturing, office and laboratory facilities; and Horizon Center, a pristine, 1,000-acre (405-hectare), high-tech business park.
      The anchor of the re-industrialization project is the federally run Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the nation's largest multi-disciplinary research lab, which employs 3,800 people and has an annual budget of $870 million. The Knoxville-Oak Ridge area has 45,000 technical professionals, 75,000 college and university students, 3,500 people with Ph.D. degrees, and more than 500 technology companies.
      "We offer a package of resources that separates us from the typical economic development activity in America," says Lawrence Young, president and CEO of CROET. His success speaks for itself: Since launching the partnership in 1996, CROET has signed 57 leases representing 31 companies in the East Tennessee Technology Park.
      Lease structures offer financial incentives to businesses willing to participate in the facility's cleanup. Also, park tenants have access to the latest research and development taking place in advanced manufacturing.
      In March, the Pollard Auditorium in Oak Ridge hosted a two-day conference focused on attracting "Industries of the Future." The forum included national representatives from the Aluminum Association and technology experts in the metals industries. Automotive companies Saturn and DENSO were among the sponsors.
      "These energy-intensive industries face increasing pressures from global competition, yet remain a vitally important component of our state's economy," says the state's Fischer. "The conference is a great way for Tennessee managers to focus on a common industry vision that will position their companies in the global marketplace."
      Statewide, the aluminum and metal-casting industries employ more than 12,000 Tennesseans and provide a $409 million annual payroll.