E-mail: tnorton@sedgwick.gov
November 2, 2009
This week will be installment number three on the trip to Chattanooga for
Visioneering. I will attempt to cover the most salient points on how the
Chattanooga community and their partners landed a Volkswagen plant and 2000 plus
jobs to the area. Hopefully in the past few weeks, I have adequately renumerated
most of the highlights of the trip in enough detail to give you a flavor of what
we experienced in Chattanooga. Next week I will try to analyze what we saw and
give you some thoughts on our lessons learned and how some of them could be
applied to Wichita and our region.
As we were introduced to many of the projects in downtown and along the river in
Chattanooga that had developed in the last several years, we also kept hearing
of the ‘big win’ in job creation and economic development … the ‘Volkswagen
Story.’ The County Mayor, Claude Ramsey and the Chamber of Commerce President
Tom Edd Wilson were obviously proud to tell the story of the journey that lead
to landing a Volkswagen manufacturing center and attached $40 million plus
training center. It was a remarkable story of disappointment, tenacity,
partnerships, visionary leadership, risk taking and ultimate victory.
Several years before being selected as the site for the new VW plant,
Chattanooga was a finalist in the quest for a Toyota plant. The plant ultimately
went to another community, but the Chattanooga community leaders involved
recognized the value of that process as a learning experience on how to compete
for these kinds of large projects. Conversation after conversation about what
they did right and where they were weak in their presentation and economic
package were had. This ‘just missed’ scenario galvanized the community and
helped strengthen necessary partnerships and initiated deeper resolve with
elected officials and other community leaders. A real ‘can do’ attitude emerged
that figured into the success on the Volkswagen sitting process.
This ‘do what needs to be done’ attitude was manifested during the site visit by
key Volkswagen officials. The ground available was shown to officials but was
far from shovel ready. It was located strategically but was heavily wooded and
hard to get a visual of the topography and how the infrastructure would lay out.
Chattanooga leaders moved quickly and made a decision to remove that impediment
from the story line. Within two weeks they cleared the property completely and
invited VW officials back to see what they couldn’t before. The site impressed
VW … but more than that, the collaborative push to eliminate the roadblock
diminishing the decision making process on that site, really struck a chord. The
State stepped up to build the 40 million dollar training center at the site.
Details were worked out. And the rest is history.
I am sure the process was not near as simple as I described, but the outcome is
still the same. The VW plant was under construction and will bring economic
value and 2000 plus jobs to the Chattanooga community. Something to learn from
all of that, I believe. I will enumerate what I believe some of the lessons
learned from the trip were next week.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for letting me get a word
in edgewise. -TN