Mercedes plant opened the door, state official says

Recruiting efforts help Alabama 'catch' Huntsville

In 1991, a poll of national business leaders and decision-makers showed that they viewed Alabama as "backward, redneck and football crazy."

That began to change two years later with Mercedes-Benz's decision to build an assembly plant near Tuscaloosa, Neal Wade, director of the Alabama Development Office, said Tuesday.

"Football crazy has not changed at all, but we have been able to change those first two to some degree," Wade said. "We have had an economic revolution, the world knows what's going on, and we're known as a business-friendly state, a successful state."

Wade said there is not a single "mega-project now that at least won't look at Alabama."

Wade was among the speakers at the Osher Summer Enrichment Series program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on "The State of the State."

Other speakers included state Sen. Tom Butler, D-Madison; Joe Adams, research coordinator for the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama; and Howard Thrailkill, a member of the Tennessee Valley Authority board.

Wade said since Dr. Wernher von Braun arrived with the space agency, Huntsville had been the "exception" to the rest of the state's economic doldrums.

"You really began your international revolution in the '50s when von Braun came here, and this city and this period has been known as an international city," he said. "You had attracted a lot of people to this state before Mercedes came that have helped you sustain that growth."

Wade noted that at one time Huntsville marketed itself as "Huntsville, USA," rather than Huntsville, Ala.

"But I think we've (state of Alabama) caught up with you," he said.

Before Mercedes' decision to locate in Alabama, Wade said, national and international companies overlooked the state.

"They didn't know who Alabama was and didn't care who Alabama was," he said. "We were not a state like Florida or Texas or other states like that."

Wade called the Mercedes' deal Alabama's "economic tipping point," adding, "That basically said to international companies that it's OK to consider Alabama."

Butler said when the Mercedes logo was affixed at the top of Legion Field in Birmingham, "It showed a picture worldwide that Alabama was open for business."

Citing Boeing, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and, most recently, ThyssenKrupp, the German company that will build a $3.9 billion steel mill north of Mobile, Wade said, "We've had some terrific growth since then."

While the state was criticized by some for handing out big incentives to land Mercedes, Wade said Alabama offered less than half of the $1.9 billion Louisiana offered to win ThyssenKrupp.

"When those families in Germany realized they were either going to Louisiana or Alabama, they started looking at schools, they started looking at housing, they started looking at what is available to them, they started looking at what is available to their families," he said. "All of that plays into the decision process."

But Wade said dollar incentives and tax breaks are no longer the major selling points for luring industry.

"I believe the driving point now is the work force," he said. "I believe that's the defining issue in economic development. I believe a company wants to make sure, they want to be guaranteed they can get a trainable work force."

Wade said that was evident when Verizon selected Huntsville as the site for a $44 million wireless call center. He said studies by Verizon showed that its employee base likely would be a combination of college students and the spouses of the nearly 5,000 federal employees transferring to the area under BRAC.