ow do state trade and investment officials visit business and government leaders from 10 countries around the world all at once? If that state is Nebraska, you get those leaders to come to you. In September, Nebraska's Gov. Dave Heineman and his economic development team hosted a Reverse Trade Mission that brought 130 delegates to the state from every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
      "It's been a busy and very productive week," said Gov. Heineman on Sept. 12th, at the conclusion of the Mission. "We now have several strong leads for attracting new business facilities here to Nebraska. Specifically, there are several Chinese companies interested in building facilities to produce or distribute goods here in the United States."
      The governor signed cooperative agreements with: Shanghai Electric Group's Southern Industrial Co., a power project contractor that is evaluating sites for a facility in which to manufacture parts for power plants; Shanghai Chuangtong Cable Materials Co. Ltd., which is also considering sites for a manufacturing facility; Shanghai Qingqiang Industry and Commerce Development Co. Ltd., a leading trade and distribution company in eastern China for grains, meats and other commodities; Shanghai Yongwei Food Co., Ltd., which is exploring export opportunities; and Shanghai Luodian Economic Investment Development Co. Ltd., which oversees trade operations for 800 small companies and is seeking joint ventures with U.S. companies.       Meanwhile, workers in Washington County, 25 miles (40 km.) north of Omaha, who are paying roughly US$4 a gallon to drive to their jobs in Omaha, Fremont and elsewhere, now have employment options closer to home. Blair, the county seat, won two key projects in 2008, each of which will hire about 100 people initially. Both expect to expand those operations in the coming years.
      The first is from Northstar Wind Towers, which is building a 150,000-sq.-ft. (14,000-sq.-m.) wind turbine tower manufacturing plant on what Senior Vice President Peder Hansen calls "the perfect location" (see the Alternative Energy report, July 2008).
      "With transportation and commuting costs going up tremendously, there are a lot of people here in Blair who go to Omaha, or other cities, to work seven-to-four jobs in welding and assembly and iron-work-type jobs," Hansen told Site Selection in September. "We're offering that right here. We've had a lot of people wanting to do the same work here in Blair. We're paying those people the same salary they're being paid now, so in effect it's an increase for them, since they don't have to pay as much for transportation."
      Hansen says the Blair site, with north-south and east-west Interstate access, rail and close proximity to the Missouri River for possible future use in moving steel plate to the facility, is ideal.
      "We were looking at Omaha, Tulsa, Des Moines, Sioux City and this area," says Hansen, "and it all really came together here. Most of us in the company are from this area, but the main driver was logistics – getting product to come in here at the least possible cost."
      Even as it establishes operations in eastern Nebraska, Northstar is thinking about where in the world its next production facilities will be. Hansen says upstate New York, with its proximity to eastern Canada; southern Mexico, especially the state of Oaxaca; and China are all very real possibilities.       Blair's other key win in 2008 was Denmark-based Novozymes' decision mid-year to build an enzyme-production facility on a 30-acre (12-hectare) site that will involve an $80-million to $100-million investment. The plant is scheduled to become operational in 2010. The company's enzymes-for-biofuels business is brisk of late, driving a need for significant new capacity. Its other business lines, too, are in growth mode, says Mark Paige, vice president of production, Americas, at Novozymes.
      "We're trying to stay ahead of our growth picture and to be in a position to supply our customers with our on-time solutions, so it was natural that we would start the search process, which we did about two years ago," he explains.
      Talk about a global marketplace. Paige says the site-search team literally began with a map of the world; eastern Nebraska wouldn't become a finalist location for some time. Novozymes already operates production facilities in China, Brazil and Sweden, and in Salem, Va. (Roanoke), and Franklinton, N.C. (northeast of Durham), in the U.S.
      "We spent a good deal of time looking at the opportunities a number of countries had to offer for our expansions," says Paige. "Ultimately, it came down to the realization that if the growth in biofuels is so big, perhaps we should first consider growing in the United States."
      Expanding the North Carolina facility was a definite option, as was building a facility in the Midwest, which would afford better proximity to the company's customers and suppliers.
      "It's a complex process involving many factors, not the least of which are the financials," says Paige. "But we also had to determine where the opportunities were to fit into the community, to have a good operating environment for our business, where the political situation was most stable on the country level, and so forth. Where could we find affordable power, which is huge for us, and water, good transportation infrastructure and materials necessary for our operating units? Quite a few factors led to the Midwest."
      The site-search team, which included a site consultant from an international service provider, considered several Midwestern states before settling on the Blair location. The new plant will service primarily the biofuels market, but enzymes, which act as catalysts for chemical reactions, are used in a range of industrial sectors, including detergents, textiles, food processing, brewing and others – all of which are Novozymes customer sectors. The plant will therefore be designed so that it can ramp up and ramp down production of specific enzyme products as needed.
      "We harness nature in the sense that we can target specific applications and look for enzymatic solutions that can improve the efficiency of reactions and, for industrial applications, actually lower the environmental impact of some industrial processes," says Paige. "We like to find alternatives to traditional chemical processes carried out in industry and make the case that using enzymes can make you more efficient and also lower industries' impact on nature."
      The Blair plant will not be an R&D operation, but it will require a highly educated work force.
      "It will be a manufacturing plant with biochemical processes running in it, so we need chemical engineers, mechanical engineers and other professional resources, such as HR, environmental and safety resources and supervisory people and operators," says Paige. "Our intention is to hire locally wherever we can. That's our commitment to Nebraska and Omaha and to the City of Blair. For a few very specialized roles that require a deep experience of Novozymes we may bring in someone from outside. But even there the intention would be to get some local people hired and trained to do that job."
      The markets Novozymes serves show no signs of slowing down, adds Paige, so expansion plans at the Blair site are highly likely.
      "There's no rock-hard commitment right now," he says, "but looking at the growth of biofuels and the transition from first-generation to second-generation biofuels, we believe the market will grow over time, and it's our intention to be out there competing for that business. We are ambitious and optimistic about our growth prospects for the future."