hile labor is plentiful for certain economic sectors, Oklahoma is working to ensure that it has a supply of knowledge workers and seasoned executives for the future. State lawmakers took a major step this year aimed at dealing with a looming shortage of aerospace engineers in the state.
      The Aerospace Industry Engineer Workforce Bill was signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry in early June. The bill that emerged from the state legislature was the more generous House version, which creates a state tax credit beginning Jan. 1, 2009, of $5,000 per year for engineers. It will also allow aerospace companies a tax credit of 20 percent for compensation paid to a qualified graduate during the first five years if the employee graduated from an in-state college or university, and 10 percent if the employee graduated from an out-of-state college or university.
      The legislation also grants Oklahoma aerospace companies a tax credit of 50 percent of the tuition reimbursed to a new engineer graduate for the first four years of his or her employment. This tax credit is limited to 50 percent of the average annual tuition paid by an engineer at a public university in Oklahoma.
      Ben Robinson, Oklahoma City site director for Boeing's operations and program director of the C/KC-135 aircraft, says aerospace is Oklahoma's fastest growing sector, generating $12.5 billion in business. He says leaders of Oklahoma's aerospace industry are excited about the prospect of being able to offer incentives.
      "The number one critical need in all areas of aerospace is engineers, and not just engineers right out of college, but experienced engineers," Robinson says. "At Boeing, we have a critical need for stress engineers and software engineers, and if we don't get them, our growth capabilities will be hampered. We do a lot of engineering on older airplanes, and some planes are 50 years old. So there Boeing has a great need, as do our partners, as well as our government partners."       Robinson says the publicity generated by the legislative action has produced a side benefit, stirring up considerable interest among students seeking information about opportunities in the sector. Harve Allen, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, says the shortage of engineers is already being felt in Oklahoma – studies show at least 650 more engineers will be needed in the state by 2013. He says the $5,000 tax credit is aimed at bringing home some of the graduates of Oklahoma's engineering schools.
      The Oklahoma Dept. of Commerce recently launched Project Boomerang, which targets two groups. The first includes 25- to 35-year-old knowledge workers to fill high-wage jobs in areas such as computing and aviation. Targeted professions include engineers, healthcare professionals and aviation mechanics.
      The second targeted group includes 50- to 65-year-old executives with management experience.
      "Technology companies need people with management experience to come and provide management for these startup companies and make them attractive for investment," says Sheri Stickley, Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and Initiatives with the Dept. of Commerce.
      Oklahoma's low unemployment rate of 3.2 percent has many employers seeking workers to fill high-paying jobs. By comparison, the national unemployment rate is 5 percent.       Hyatt Hotels & Resorts has operated successful shared services centers in Europe and Asia for several years. Now, the Chicago-based firm is bringing that concept to the plains of Central Oklahoma with the opening of a facility in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.
      Hyatt hopes to eventually employ 300 at the facility, which will serve as the primary customer accounting and internal payroll services site for its 117 hotels and resorts in North America. Hyatt worked with CB Richard Ellis' Phoenix-based Labor Analytics Group in its site search.
      "They gave us a list of 10 locations based on a set of criteria we gave them," says Jim Melvin, a 31-year Hyatt employee, now the company's vice president, shared service center. "We narrowed it to three [Moore; San Antonio, Texas; and Rockledge, Fla.] and toured two of them [Moore and Rockledge]."
      Hyatt's criteria included its ideal mix of the right quality and availability of labor and the cost of living, all of which Moore provides, Melvin says. Availability of training and education facilities was another key factor, he says.       Hyatt officials first visited the Moore site in June 2007. The Oklahoma Department of Commerce organized the two-day site visit, in partnership with Moore's Economic Development Department.
      "CB Richard Ellis gave us information that continued to drive us toward Moore," Melvin says. "Once we got there, we learned about the Moore Norman Technology Center. But it was incentives, in the form of tax credits from the state's Quality Jobs Program, which tipped the scales in Moore's favor.
      "This is a nice incentive that was very important in our decision," Melvin says. "As we hire individuals and they come to work, we receive tax credits."
      The Oklahoma City metro area has a highly educated work force, Melvin says, adding that a lot of graduates never leave the area after completing their education. He says Hyatt is looking for job candidates with accounting skills and Oracle software skills.
      The building Hyatt found is a 43,000-sq.-ft. (4,000-sq.-m.) facility formerly occupied by a travel-related call center. So, much of the needed infrastructure was already in place at the site, which is in a shopping center just off I-35 between Oklahoma City and Norman.
      "It was originally built as a family variety store back in the 1960s and was converted to a call center in the 1990s," Melvin explains. "It has plenty of surface parking and has easy access to restaurants."
      Hyatt has operated shared services centers for its Hyatt International operations since the 1990s, and now has centers in Mainz, Germany; Mumbai, India; and Melbourne, Australia. Hyatt's other brands – Hyatt Place and Summerfield Suites – also operate U.S. shared services centers. Globally, the Hyatt Corporation owns 735 hotels and resorts with more than 136,000 rooms in more than 40 countries.       Melvin, who oversees just the new Oklahoma center, says shared services centers provide cost savings, but perhaps just as important, they allow for consistencies in company procedures. He says Hyatt is a decentralized company, and the services the new center will provide were previously handled at the hotel level.
      "The shared services center will allow us to be more consistent across all of our 117 hotels in North America," Melvin says. "We now have one accounting system."
      Melvin expects the Oklahoma center, which began operating in March, to ramp up to 150 positions by August 2009 and to reach 300 within two to three years.
      Last October, Tulsa welcomed another back-office operation in the form of a customer development center operated by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Enterprises. The $16-million, 60,000-sq.-ft. (5,574-sq.-m.) facility is in a former mall being transformed into a mixed-use office and retail facility. Company officials expect to employ about 300 by the end of the year, making the operation its second largest center.
      Coca-Cola Enterprises also operates centers in Tampa, Fla., and Annapolis, Md. Low costs, work force availability and a central location were among the factors cited by the company in choosing Tulsa for the center, which will serve customers in 13 Western states.