outheast Oklahoma may be oil and gas country, but that doesn't decrease the cost of oil's effects on the plastics industry there. Thus Cornerstone Plastics, a maker of storage containers, cans and buckets and a solid employer in Durant, Okla., for more than 10 years, was forced to close up shop not long ago.
   The stage therefore was set for Eagle Suspensions to swoop in from Blenheim, Ontario, on the shore of Lake Erie, to establish a leaf spring manufacturing operation in Cornerstone's former facility, which has ramped up to approximately 160 employees since starting production in September 2006. The company has invested US$10 million in the plant, including the addition of 30,000 sq. ft. (2,787 sq. m.).
   To reach its customers in the lower 48 states, Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, the company operates distribution centers in Lewisville, Texas; Mississauga, Ont.; and Harrisburg, Pa., and also ships direct to original equipment manufacturers from the Oklahoma plant.
   According to Wayne Robinson, president of Eagle Suspensions, "persistent" only hints at the hustle of the Oklahoma economic development team, beginning and ending with Tommy Kramer, executive director of the Durant Industrial Authority and the unofficial head of Team Durant, whose member organizations include Oklahoma Natural Gas, Kiamichi Railroad, Oklahoma CareerTech, AT&T, Kiamichi Technology Center and the Southern Oklahoma Development Association.
   "Tommy Kramer is a very tenacious individual," says Robinson. "If it wouldn't have been for him, we never would have gone to Oklahoma."
   But the story starts with the exodus from Blenheim, which also recently saw Inergy Automotive Systems shut down a plant. Robinson says there were three principal reasons for the move, beginning with currency exchange: Once Canadian and U.S. dollars achieved par, it rendered the price of Eagle's products non-competitive, especially in a world marketplace that includes competition in places such as China, India and Vietnam, where a competitor of Eagle's opened a plant two years ago.
   "Number two, we had a unionized plant," says Robinson. "It's not so much the wage rate, as it is the effect on your productivity. It's very difficult to change the culture of a plant that has been established for over 20 years. No matter how hard we tried, productivity was not at the standard it needed to be.
   "Third, the government in Canada," says the native Canadian, whose family and whose wife's family were pioneers in the country. "It's going from free enterprise to a socialist state. They impose a lot on manufacturers, and it seems like they don't want us there."    The parent company of Eagle, Dallas Spring Corp., has been in the Dallas area since 1984, and now has four locations within 20 minutes of headquarters in Lewisville, Texas. Robinson says his initial search team, comprising himself and three key individuals, was looking only in Texas, with the goal of being within 150 miles (241 km.) of Lewisville. Some 26 Texas cities and zero Oklahoma cities were in the running.
   "We wanted a smaller city, because in Dallas it sometimes does get difficult to hire people, and the wages would be a little bit higher."
   A former plastics plant in Gainesville, Texas, was almost home, but another company (GAF) outbid Eagle at the eleventh hour. The lister said he had a similar building in Durant.
   "I was not interested in going to Oklahoma, not for any logical reason," says Robinson. "A couple weeks went by. Since we'd lost the other ideal building, we were feeling a little bit down. I said, 'Let's go up and look at it.' It was a terrific building, ideal for us. But it didn't really end there, because another building came up in Ft. Worth."
   Eventually, Robinson put in offers on both buildings, and they were both accepted the same day. He went to visit the Ft. Worth site.
   "I was over in the building with the realtor and the manager. I'm looking at the building, and definitely taking it, about 25 minutes from our place in Lewisville, with 25 acres [10 hectares] and excellent rail. Tommy calls me while I'm in the building, and says, 'You have to come and talk to me before you do anything.' I went up and talked to him and, with his sweet tongue, he convinced me."    Over and above Kramer's sales skill, Robinson says it's the people in Durant who have won him over.
   "I'm an engineer myself, and I've done a lot of facilities and been to a lot of plants," he says. "The number one thing you don't get in most places is the people there. You phone them – the mayor, somebody in state government – and they bend over backwards, get you through all the red tape and make things happen in a fraction of time. If we'd moved anywhere else, I don't know if we would have made it through the transition. As you relocate, things happen you don't anticipate. We put in calls, and they immediately come and help you. It was the best experience I've had in my business years. Can you put a numerical value on that? Maybe not, but it surpasses everything else."
   Everything else was no hill of beans though, all compiled in a scant two months. It included a rail spur financed by a 20-year interest-free loan of $400,000 plus a $100,000 grant, as well as a new gas line financed in the same fashion. The state's Quality Jobs Program helped, with its offer of 5 percent quarterly cash payments on payroll for 10 years. So did a five-year ad valorem tax exemption on land, building and equipment; a sales tax exemption; a freeport inventory tax exemption and state-subsidized training. But one thing unique to the site was its situation on Native American land, which affords a 40-percent-faster accelerated depreciation schedule.
   "That is terrific to help your cash flow, because it saves you tax up front," says Robinson. "Better to have that write-off initially."
   "The third largest tribe in America is the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma, and they're headquartered about a mile from this plant," says Kramer, adding that Chief Gregory Pyle is his neighbor. "They are our largest employers, with over 6,000 employees," including several casinos, two major truck stops, a restaurant, hotel and coliseum. Kramer says the tribe is actively supportive of industrial development across 10 and a half counties of southeastern Oklahoma, having just helped fund a new 1-million-gallon water tower, several roads and the town's third fire station.
   Kramer says it was particularly sweet to watch those 300 semis start arriving in town as the Eagle plant landed. Now in full operation, the plant's employment is rising toward 200 in phase-two expansion, and railcars of bar steel keep rolling in. To Kramer, the happenstance and speed of the project are still a thrill to recount:
   "It took five years to get a Chili's and an Arby's, and here we have something like this in two months."    Corrugated packaging manufacturer Pratt Industries, the U.S.-based sister company to Australia-based Visy Corp., announced in July 2007 it would build a $150-million, 150-employee recycled containerboard mill at the Port of Shreveport-Bossier, La. Analysts were typically skeptical about this "outlier" project, saying it revealed no trend toward mill building, wondering why Pratt would choose to invest in new mills at all and marveling at the expected cost for the 360,000-annual-ton project.
   "The unit capital cost of this new capacity appears quite low – only $150,000/daily ton of capacity," sniffed a Deutsche Bank report. "This is only about 50-60 percent of the cost of many of the 1990s-vintage recycled containerboard mills. How Pratt is able to achieve this low capital cost is unclear."
   Pratt Chairman and CEO Anthony Pratt revealed in September a trend within his own company, however, when he pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative extravaganza in New York City that the Shreveport project was part of a $1-billion pledge that would include two other recycled paper plants and four waste-to-energy plants.
   In the meantime, folks in Shreveport are glad to explain how low capital cost can still be a moneymaker.
   "This is another example of the Port Priority Program working for the port systems of Louisiana," said Ed Preau, assistant secretary of the state's Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD). "Our ability to help ports build strong infrastructure becomes a major selling point for them when they are out competing for new business. Pratt Industries' decision to locate at the Port of Shreveport-Bossier is positive reinforcement of monies well spent."
   "This project entered our economic development pipeline a year ago this month," said Bobby Jelks, then-chairman of the Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation, at the project's July announcement. "We had to go to the drawing board more than a few times to keep Shreveport in the driver's seat. Beating out Dallas on this project is something we can all be proud of and hopefully a great indicator of just how far we've come as a region."
   The team that lured the project included the Port of Shreveport-Bossier (see photo and caption, p. 263), the City of Shreveport, SWEPCO, the Caddo-Bossier Port Commission, the Red River Waterway Commission and Louisiana Economic Development.
   Dallas didn't lose out completely. Three months later, Pratt announced it would construct a municipal recycling plant in the North Dallas community of Denton, modeled after the first such plant it built in the U.S., located in East Point, Ga.
   As of Jan. 1, the Greater Shreveport Chamber reported 38 active economic development projects carrying the potential of more than 2,600 new jobs, 3.9 million sq. ft. (362,310 sq. m.) of new company space and $2.1 billion in new investment.    The Caddo tribes that are the namesake of Caddo Parish in Louisiana also once inhabited the territory that is now Gregg County in east Texas, which over the past two years has been the far and away regional leader in New Plant Database corporate projects and expansions. It only makes sense that Longview and Kilgore, established by railroads in 1870 and 1872, respectively, would thrive as industrial hubs, whether the products are cotton, oil and gas or machinery and hardware.
   LeTourneau Technologies can make the claim to being the original earth mover company, and has had a profound influence on the region ever since opening its Longview plant in 1945. Its most recent project is a $15-million expansion announced in 2007 for the manufacture of offshore oil rig equipment, following a 2006 investment of $25 million in a mining and timber equipment expansion. Other expansions in the region have included projects from Holt Caterpillar Equipment Service, General Dynamics (steel pedestals) and ETR Services (radiators).
   The biggest of the past two years, though, was the April 2007 decision by Memphis-based hardware distributor Orgill to invest $50 million and hire 300 for the company's sixth distribution center in Kilgore's Synergy Industrial Park. The facility will encompass 530,000 sq. ft. (49,237 sq. m.) and occupy a parcel of just over 65 acres (26.3 hectares), serving customers throughout Texas and in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.    Orgill officials and their lead consultant, J. Michael Mullis of Memphis-based J.M. Mullis, Inc., say, "A major consideration for the location was proximity to the company's customers in this area as well as logistics considerations and costs. The total site selection process took some six months, and there were two other location candidate finalists – one in northeastern Texas, and one in southwestern Arkansas. Kilgore, and Gregg County, provided a combined very aggressive quantitative and qualitative effort … The leadership of both local governments, and the Kilgore EDC, worked diligently in every manner possible to secure the Orgill project."
   Asked if the number of projects in the area has put a strain on work-force development, they say, "The team conducted a very comprehensive labor analysis of the typical labor commuting radius for Kilgore, with particular emphasis on availability, commuting patterns, quality, dependability, costs vs. productivity levels and overall attitude. In working with local officials on employee recruitment, and with the local community college on training, we have been pleased with the overall work force."
   Incentives included a Texas Enterprise Zone designation, a training grant for Kilgore College to train workers, and a "jumbo grant" approved by the Kilgore EDC and city council and funded by the Texas Capital Fund program of the Texas Department of Agriculture.
   Like several big projects of recent vintage, the Orgill project featured a "preliminary" site selection announcement without yet having a final location chosen. Asked if the strategy worked to the company's advantage in terms of bringing in new candidate sites and/or upping the ante in negotiations with sites already in the running, Orgill and Mullis say, "We did not attempt to leverage communities or states against each other in our overall site selection process. We had some premature press that required the company to make an early statement, but the statement was not intended or used for incentive negotiations."
   The facility joins a distribution network that includes sites in Inwood, W. Va.; Tifton, Ga.; Vandalia, Ill.; Memphis; and, most recently, Hurricane, Utah. All the non-Memphis facilities have been added since 1996, with most having seen their own expansions during the past decade as well.
   "This will be a strategic location for us that will allow us to reduce our lead time and improve our service to customers within the four-state region as well as create operating efficiencies for us in Tifton and Memphis," said Randy Williams, senior vice president – operations and logistics for Orgill.    The Goodyear tire and Nautilus plants may have shut down, but that doesn't mean the wheels have stopped turning in Tyler, Troup and other towns in Smith County, Texas.
   In 2006-2007, the county has welcomed a testing facility in Tyler from Trane Co. and a testing operation from SPEA America, a maker of semiconductor testing equipment.
   But the biggest test ride in town, next to those pulled off by legendary native and three-time world bull riding champion Adriano Moraes, is on a trike.
   No, not the red kind with tassles tipped over by your three-year-old. Rather, the kind with a $30,000 price tag, ridden by a booming baby boomer generation.
   In addition to Motor Trike's expansion of its first plant in Troup, sister company Thoroughbred Motorsports has built a separate manufacturing plant there as well, primarily for the production of its new model unveiled in August 2007, "The Stallion." Its target market? The company says it aims to sell 60 percent of its Stallion output to women.
   "The expansion added 30,000 sq. ft. [2,787 sq. m.] for our Stallion line, bringing our total plant size to 85,000 sq. ft. [7,897 sq. m.]," says Thoroughbred Motorsports spokesperson Cristy Stanley. Plans call for that space to nearly double in the next nine months, as the company also aims to double its work force of 81 within the next two years. Motor Trike Owner Jeff Vey is working with the Tyler Economic Development Council on related infrastructure improvements, including roads, power and water.
   Motor Trike applies a patented retrofit for most popular touring motorcycles, rendering them three-wheelers with actual bodies appended to them, halfway to carhood. Thoroughbred Motorsports takes the business up a notch, its Stallion boasting a Ford engine and five-speed automatic transmission. The companies averaged 35 percent a year growth between 2000 and 2005. They're part of an industry that's growing at about the same rate that baby boomers are aging, with the 22,000 trikes sold in 2006 a 16-percent bump from the year before.    "Amazing," says Tom Mullins, president and CEO of the Tyler Economic Development Council since 1989, of Motor Trike's success. "It's a homegrown industry started by a guy who was a real inventor. We've been involved with them since day one, when they didn't have a track record and needed financing. Not only did they grow, but they paid us back."
   Also growing in Tyler is plastic bag and film Hood Flexible Packaging, which in late 2007 was offered a three-year tax abatement as an enticement to go forward with its planned $4-million plant investment. The project will add between 10 and 25 jobs to the current payroll of 111. The company last expanded its Tyler plant capacity in 2005. Mullins says Hood has a strong individual to thank for its success.
   "Gulam Harji is one of those brilliant engineers," says Mullins. "He was actually assigned to Tyler by corporate to shut it down about 10 years ago, and found a way to make it profitable."
   Yet another strong-willed individual is associated with another recent project in Tyler, the new offices of semiconductor testing equipment design outfit SPEA, based in Italy. Mullins says the company originally wanted to go to Dallas, but the talented individual they wanted to head the office had already relocated from Dallas to Tyler and didn't want to go back.
   Testing of a different sort will take place at the new 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,787-sq.-m.) facility being constructed by Trane Co., which employs 2,200 in the area. Trane, along with Carrier (1,200 employees) helped the city garner money from the state's Emerging Technology Fund in order to establish in Tyler a national center for indoor air quality research. Trane anticipates creating 200 to 300 new jobs, says Mullins.
   The city is also pursuing its own tax increment reinvestment zone, seeking to bring to downtown Tyler the same sort of energy and tax base that two previous TIFs have brought to nearby Lindale (where a TIF was established in concert with the location of a Target distribution center in the mid-1990s) and to Tyler Industrial Park, where the funds helped develop a technical skills training center in the early part of this century.
   If successful, the new zone would make three TIFs among three taxing entities. Ask the champion bull rider or the folks at Motor Trike and they'll tell you: Good things always come in threes.    Among the leading counties in southwest Arkansas for corporate projects is Union County, which in the past year has seen a $14-million, 44-job expansion by Norphlet Chemical in Norphlet, a $2-million, 20-job expansion by Pacific MDF Products, Inc. in El Dorado and a $10-million, 50-job new calcium chloride plant from Tetra Technologies, based in The Woodlands, Texas, in the Houston area.
   Located in the former MacMillan Oil Refinery complex on 92 acres (37.2 hectares), the Norphlet plant will make automobile refrigerant R134A, to be supplied primarily to Tulsa, Okla.-based sourcing and distribution company Tulstar Products, Inc.
   Tetra is an oil and gas services company, supplying feedstocks of calcium choride and bromine-based products to energy and other markets. In late 2006, it entered into several agreements with Arkansas-based Chemtura, including an investment in its bromine operations. The tail brine from that plant will be a feedstock for the new calcium chloride plant, located next door. Completing the chemical circle, the new plant's own byproducts – sodium chloride and magnesium hydroxide – will be offered to Chemtura at "market-advantaged" prices. The project replaces an earlier plan by Tetra to develop a plant in Magnolia, which would have cost $100 million and employed more than 100 people.
   "The agreements give us access to bromine about 18 to 24 months earlier than we could have obtained bromine from our originally proposed Magnolia plant," said Geoffrey M. Hertel, president and CEO of Tetra Technologies. "We are eliminating the engineering risk associated with the building of a bromine plant and the geological risk associated with the drilling of the brine wells. TETRA is also eliminating the cost of a bromine plant, the brine well field, disposal wells, and the pipelines and associated transportation facilities. Chemtura represents a built-in and geographically advantaged customer for a large portion of our sodium chloride output."
   Another byproduct: Tetra also will expand its brominated CBF plant in West Memphis, Ark. All told, said the company in recent financial guidance, "we have estimated an eventual improvement of $45 million annually in pretax profits from these projects over depressed 2007 profit levels."