Connections Fuel Success

Big, flat, developable land is usually hard to come by in the home of Rock City, but the community's Enterprise South Industrial Park has 1,200 acres (486 hectares) of it to the north. The park's biggest attributes come in twos: two owners (Hamilton County and the City of Chattanooga); two water sources; two electrical sources; and — most important to many industries — two rail operations (CSX and Norfolk Southern).
        "It gets us in the competitive game for bigger manufacturers, which we haven't been in in a while," says County Executive Claude Ramsey. "We'll put $20 million worth of infrastructure in right now, and it will end up being a $40-million to $50-million park. I hope we'll be able to add additional land as time goes on, and we continue to work to do that."
        Ramsey says the area has never lost sight of its manufacturing roots, even as it seeks to distance itself from the level of activity that made it one of the nation's most polluted cities in the late 1960s. Now its quality of life is extolled far and wide. And its quality of industry is enhanced by Mayor Bob Corker, whose background not only includes time as a corporate real estate executive, but as the state's director of finance.
        "It helps to know people," he says, citing his experience with current Gov. Phil Bredesen in helping to woo the NFL's Oilers to Nashville to become the Titans. "Matt Kisber, the new economic development chief, was the head of the House finance committee when I was commissioner of finance," he says. "It's the relationships, more than the actual knowledge of state government. When you can pick up the phone and talk to someone on the cell phone or at their home, and they're not upset with you — when you can call the basement of the Governor's residence and talk to the trooper who knows you firsthand and he can track the governor down — those things are helpful."