t was during and after World War II that states like Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and the Dakotas saw an increase in facility development. The boom was incited primarily by companies with Defense Department contracts that were asked to locate away from the coasts for security and redundancy reasons, not to mention the armed forces bases themselves.
        "There were naval air stations and army air stations all over when I grew up here," says Bob Cole, director of economic development for Pottawatomie County near Manhattan, citing the 10,000 people at the peak of operations at Schilling Air Force Base in Salina, Kansas. In Nebraska, Becton-Dickinson Medical Systems was making its first syringes for the military. And other corporations, defense-related or not, were looking to mitigate their risk with a spot that was out-of-the-way enough for safety, but in-the-way for commerce.
        Half a century later, those same factors are at the top of many corporate site criteria, helping those same states rise to the top of corporate lists.