While Tulsa was unhappy to see Citgo move its headquarters to Houston this spring (joining fellow Houston newcomer ChevronTexaco), others are hanging their hats in the city. In February 2004, Illinois-based State Farm Insurance Co. announced a consolidation that will bring around 250 new jobs to Tulsa's existing facilities, and 350 to Columbia, Mo. The consolidation, says State Farm's public affairs spokesman Phil Supple, is a continuation of a process first begun in August 2001, when the company reorganized from 27 regions to 13 zones. Since that time -- like so many of its manufacturing counterparts -- the company has learned to do more with less, actually selling more policies with a work force that has shrunk by 8 percent, primarily through attrition.
      "Companies of our size tend to grow and shrink as times change," he says, noting State Firm's holistic approach to moving the company forward. He says about 70 factors were examined in the site consolidation process, which will result in the closing of a 1,000-job complex in Monroe, La. Louisiana Gov. Blanco and her team put together a last-ditch incentive package, but Supple says the company entertained no new incentive packages in its decision-making, for a couple of very understandable reasons.
      "Between one in five and one in four people in these communities are State Farm policyholders, "he says, making note of the company's mutual status. "For us to accept financial incentives from a community, that money would have to come from somewhere. It's coming from our policyholders' pockets." Also, he says, "generally we look at these decisions on the internal factors. Incentives may be a quick fix, but we want to look more long-range."
      Looking long-range is just what Tulsa-area officials and voters had in mind last year when they passed a 13-year, one-percent sales tax hike. The plans incorporated into the Vision 2025 plan resulting from the measure's passage included an incentive for Boeing's 7E7 project (which went to Seattle) and another for the retention of a maintenance facility for American Airlines, which ultimately decided to keep the operation open. About $60 million is slated to be split between a medical center and an advanced technology research center on the Tulsa campuses of the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, respectively.
      Even the tax hike had contingent savings in mind: a provision that kicked in when Boeing bypassed Tulsa for the 7E7 project lowered the amount of the increase from one cent to six-tenths of one cent.