W

hen the youngster in the Dr. Seuss classic "Green Eggs and Ham" finally gives in and tries the colorful dish, he soon realizes Sam I Am was right. Executive after executive in Oklahoma's key industries are telling the same story to job candidates they are recruiting from elsewhere, industry peers mulling an Oklahoma location and the merely curious where the nation's 46th state is concerned. Having made the transition themselves in many cases, senior executives in the aerospace, logistics, energy, life sciences and other industries are eager to set the record straight.
      In Oklahoma City, for instance, Boeing employs doctorate-level engineers who design software and hardware for weapons systems. "They are the most elite of the elite among engineers, and they are very hard to move — once you hire them, they generally stay where they are," says Steven Hendrickson, director of Boeing's Strategic Planning & Communications unit in Tulsa. "They are typically located in Seattle, southern California, Philadelphia and St. Louis on rare occasions. We find ourselves convincing them to come to Oklahoma, because their perception of the state is usually bad. But as soon as we get them here, we can't get them to leave."
      Boeing came close to having plenty of other workers on its Oklahoma payroll, adds Hendrickson. "The site-selection consultants working on the Boeing 787 location decision can't tell you this, but I will: Oklahoma came in second," he says. "The only reason we came in second was that the state was not able to come up with an entire annual budget worth of incentives."
      Hendrickson, who also is chairman of the Governor's Council for Workforce and Economic Development, was present at nine of the 27 state presentations making their case for the 1,200-job production facility. "What distinguished Oklahoma from the others was the seamless nature of the levels of government as they were presented. You could not tell, unless you specifically asked the question, at which level of government a presenter was representing. It was seamless." Other states took more of a "silo approach" to luring the facility, says Hendrickson, where representatives of state government, local government, higher education, economic development and other entities spoke of their own contribution to the proposal with little awareness of the competing state's broader value proposition.
      In 2001, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical moved its research and development operations from Palo Alto, Calif., to Norman, Okla., where a subsidiary owned a manufacturing facility. (Following Yamanouchi's merger with Fujisawa Pharmaceutical, the organization was renamed Astellas Pharma.)
      "One of the concerns at the time was whether we could get scientists to move from sunny California to Norman, Oklahoma," says Suzy Hurt, Astellas' vice president of business operations. "In fact, very few people transferred, and the concern then became, would we be able to attract people to Norman? And, in fact, we were able to attract everybody we needed to come here. Some are concerned about getting employees to come to this part of the country," she adds. "The ability to attract people is always a concern, but we have found no issue with that. We've found plenty of people who want to get out of the grind of the lifestyle and commutes of the east and west coasts."
     

Wrap-up: The 2005 Oklahoma Legislative Session

Key legislation passed in the most recent legislative session includes the following measures of interest to business and industry: High-wage incentive for existing business: Expands an Oklahoma Quality Jobs incentive to new jobs that pay at least 150 percent of the average wage of the company's current work force; applies to manufacturing, R&D, administration & headquarters, some service industries and aerospace. Workers' compensation reform: Will save state businesses more than $100 million annually; addresses attorney fees and medical matters. Elimination of sales tax on airplane parts: Repeals sales tax on parts used in aircraft maintenance; makes Oklahoma's aerospace industry more competitive. Capital Gains: Oklahoma expanded last year's elimination of capital gains tax on personal sale of Oklahoma-held property to include capital gains on corporate sales of Oklahoma-based property. Tax Relief on Economic Investment: Taxpayers will see a $100-million rebate; marginal income tax was reduced and the standard deduction on state income taxes was doubled. Higher education bond issue: A $500-million investment in higher education will boost economic development efforts throughout Oklahoma. Achieving Classroom Excellence: Secondary education reform initiatives include school accountability, course requirements, testing and teacher salaries. Infrastructure: Surplus revenues will enable up to $170 million to be spent on improving roads and bridges.