(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

We always hear about big develops when the business decides to locate in northwest Ohio, but behind that announcement, our countless years sometimes, months and days of hard work by a whole team of people in those areas that make that deal come to fruition.

We're joined by one of those people right now.

It's Matt Gilroy, he's the Executive Director of the Fulton County Economic Development Corporation.

Matt, thank you for being with us on Journal here today.

- Thank you, Steve, appreciate it.

- And I mentioned the fact that, we see those things in the news we hear about when a company decides to locate here or expand but that isn't something that just happens overnight.

You guys obviously have put in a lot of time as I mentioned, to make that deal come together.

And I know that you have a number of things that are going on out right now in Fulton County.

So talk a little about the process and some of the things you have that are going to break here and people are gonna start to hear about.

- Well, that's a good point.

Many times when a project is announced, people in the community see it and react to it, and usually are are very happy about you know, new business coming to town.

But behind the scenes, there's usually several years of work and activity that happens between the economic development office, the community officials, the public officials, as well as the company.

And for instance, I'll give you, one of the projects that we just worked on here in the last couple of years, a company called Nova Tube and Steel located in the Village of Delta in Fulton County.

And they made their announcement in 2019, right before the pandemic.

We had been working with Nova Tube consultants for about two years, maybe a little bit longer than two years prior to that announcement.

And they have been searching for a U.S. site since 2015.

So that company is based in Canada and they have several North American facilities all over Canada and the United States.

But they were looking for a site specific to some needs that they had from their customers.

And they were looking in northwest Ohio as well as other states.

Ultimately, they made the decision to locate in the Village of Delta and there was a lot of work that was being done behind the scenes to put together the property.

We had a couple of property owners that we were working with there's rail involved in it, some infrastructure needs that the company had that we would have to accommodate and so on.

And all of that takes years of conversation and decisions from the community as well as from the company to make sure that ultimately that that site location turns out to be beneficial long term to the company as well as to the community.

You know, these are decisions that companies are making for the next three or four generations.

And certainly the community wants to bring businesses here that succeed over the long term as well.

We don't want to bring somebody here and they closed doors five years from now.

So lots of conversation and relationship building takes place well before that announcement in the paper.

And then once that announcement is made, then it's an all hands on deck to help the company find the construction firms that they need to complete the process, and then of course hire new people that will work in their facility.

[Steve] Right.

And one of the things too, obviously, because as you mentioned, you want them to be here for a long, long time because you don't wanna put in, everybody doesn't wanna put in all of this effort and then have it only go for a few years.

That's not a good use of anybody's time.

You talked about the fact you have to then bring once you have the announcement the company's coming here, has it been more difficult now than it was maybe prior to the pandemic to then bring all those pieces together, the materials, the crews, the things to actually then build this facility that this company wants to build in your neighborhood?

- Well, yeah, certainly supply chain is affecting the construction industry.

We're also seeing that with the utility industry.

So for example, if either the company or utility has to build a substation to provide the electric services that are needed some of the components of substations are 18 to 24 month wait times.

So we have to be prepared for that and understand those circumstances as they arise to try to get ahead of it.

And I'm constantly asking our utility companies that support Fulton County, where is that at?

What's happening within their industry?

So I can make sure that if we are working with a company that they know those circumstances and can address them well ahead of time to make sure that it doesn't hold up their processes.

[Steve] Yeah, and probably one of the advantages too and obviously people look for a location where they have good access, they have good transportation grid, you've got a railroad that runs across Fulton County, it runs from Chicago to Toledo and then all points west and east of that.

And a good road grid too with the Ohio Turnpike there and the developments along there the interchanges things that made that probably a nice attractive tool for you to use too, to say, look we've got great access here.

[Matt] That's right.

So the Ohio Turnpike runs right through Fulton County basically cutting us right in half.

And that provides monumental opportunities for us.

And then with the investments that are being made on the turnpike with the interchanges, I believe that that puts us in play for distribution centers and some the logistics types of activities that we just haven't experienced yet here in Fulton County, but some of the communities around us have.

And so I think it will bring some great opportunities for us to chase over the next decade or so.

[Steve] Yeah, now, and obviously you can't talk about projects you have in the works but are there other projects?

You mentioned this particular one, are there other ones that have come to fruition since we talked a couple of years ago that have turned out to be beneficial for everybody?

[Matt] Yeah, and well, I'll tell you a rule of thumb in our industry is that 80% of the investment being made from businesses especially in the industrial sector are coming from the companies that are already here.

[Steve] Ah, okay.

[Matt] So we have seen a lot of businesses growing, hiring more people, investing in machinery and equipment, adding to their facility on new construction, et cetera.

So for example, Haas Door Company in Wauseon, Archbold Furniture in Archbold.

We've seen a lot of investment being made within some of our larger manufacturing businesses already in the county.

[Steve] Okay.

When we come back, we can talk a little about retention because obviously not only are you trying to attract new businesses, new organizations but also make sure the ones that are here are working well and they're getting everything they need too.

So, back in just a moment with Matt Gilroy, Executive Director of the Fulton County Economic Development Corporation, here on The Journal.

Thanks for staying with us here on The Journal.

Our guest is Matt Gilroy, the Executive Director of the Fulton County Economic Development Corporation.

When we left that last segment we were talking about businesses that have been here for several years and then continuing expand.

And obviously, besides attracting new organizations, new businesses, you wanna make sure you retain the ones that are here and that they continue to be successful.

So you mentioned a little bit how you do that retention but what are some of the tools you use with companies that are already here?

- Well, I think the most important thing is making sure you are communicating regularly with the businesses already in your community.

In economic development it's really important.

We use a term called business retention and expansion or VRE.

I don't particularly buy into that term, the way I refer to it is just make sure you're having conversations as much as you can with those that are influential within the business space.

So we are constantly talking to human resources managers, presidents and plant managers of our businesses and others just to make sure that we're meeting their needs.

And you never really know, what the next question, what the next challenge is for a business that's communicating with you.

And many circumstances they're having an issue with utility, something isn't working in their water supply, for example.

So, connecting them with the right people to help them figure out some solutions is just a feather in the cap for economic development.

You know, the companies remember that over the long term, and then when they're making decisions about making an investment, if the company has several facilities all over the map, they'll look at Fulton County for example and say, you know something, that community understands us and supports us.

So this is a great investment that we make it here because that's our continuance in the future.

You know, we see those types of interactions creating positive vibes for us and positive outcomes for us as well over the long term.

And that's already taken shape.

We've had the great benefit of many of our companies over some challenging years with COVID, making substantial investments and for that matter, hiring more people as well.

And obviously both of those are great from the community's perspective.

[Steve] Sure, and you mentioned the fact too that you're working with the companies that are here.

Obviously there are people like you in other locations who are then trying to lure those companies away from where they currently are or if they're thinking about expanding, well, expand in our location, not the one in Fulton County.

So that's an ongoing battle too.

And I know that it's an issue because you work with a lot of those people.

because there are sometimes multiple county or multiple jurisdiction decisions that have to be made.

So on one hand, well, if it's a friendly, I don't know, competition or not?

[Matt] It's a friendly competition, it's a great way to put it.

[Steve] But that's a challenge too because just, people like you who are tasked with this as you said, you're always on the lookout, you're always looking at the future and what a company's not gonna need necessarily today but what are they gonna need a month from now, a year from now, two years from now?

And that's a big part of the picture.

You know, one of the things now we always talk about and it's important because companies look at it is the workforce that exists and workforce development, I don't know if that's still the term but that's still a big part of what you have to help piece together when a company says, "Let's talk about Fulton County, Matt, why should we come there?"

I'm sure the first thing they ask is what's the workforce like?

[Matt] That's absolutely correct.

That's usually question number one.

And it's question number one for businesses that are trying to expand that are already located here.

You know, what is our workforce looking like?

Can we find enough people to accommodate the expansion and the investment that we're making?

Can we find the skill necessary for that investment, et cetera.

So all of those questions are usually right at the forefront of the conversation.

And the first thing that's really important for any economic development professional is, we have to understand the data and we have to know it off of the top of our heads.

And then we have to be able to provide the sources that we are using to share that information.

And it's really important that anyone in economic development not try to, I guess, provide fraudulent data in those conversations.

And it's a scenario where if that information isn't accurate bad decisions are made on both parts, and unfortunately that's going to usually lead to a bad result.

[Steve] Right.

So it's important for us to understand the data and help the company understand the data.

Now, what we see here in Fulton County is that our unemployment rate is very low.

So we're trending around 4% unemployment which most economists will say is essentially full employment.

There's some possibility that we're gonna see an uptake in unemployment over the next couple of years if the dreaded "R" word does come into fruition.

However, I do believe that if a recession does happen we are better positioned than what we have been in recessions past.

And our unemployment here in northwest Ohio is not going to fluctuate you know, greatly upward.

We may see a couple of ticks, go from a maybe a four to a five and a half or 6%, but overall the companies really want to understand the skills that people have here, and the skills that can be obtained here.

So it's important in economic development that we're working alongside our educational institutions at a grade school, high school and higher education level to make sure that they're providing the skills that are necessary for you know, future employment opportunities.

And also we're sort of the middle man to connect employers with the educational folks that can provide those skills and provide training opportunities.

We use the term workforce development basically in my mind what that means is workforce training.

However, I believe over the next decade it's basically going to be a term workforce attraction that is more meaningful than development.

And what I mean by that is northwest Ohio is experiencing a downward shift on our population.

The baby boomers are retiring and so our labor participation rate as well as our population is projected to fall over the next decade.

And that's going to put even more impetus on the labor market and finding the talent necessary to carry out the production of goods and services that we need across the region.

So we need to focus on attracting people here and then retaining who already live and work and play here.

[Steve] Yeah, when we come back, we can talk a little bit more about that because that's been an ongoing discussion.

How do we keep people who live here, get educated here, stay here, so we can talk about that when we come back.

And then talk about some of the other tools that you have because there's lots of terminology that the people in your field, the professional field understand.

But maybe to the average person like me, it's like, well, okay, I've heard they've got this economic development zone.

What does that actually mean to me as a resident of Fulton County?

So we come back, we can talk about, yeah, retaining and quality of life and you said workforce attraction, and some of the other tools that you use to make these deals come to fruition.

Back in just a moment with Matt Gilroy, Executive Director of Fulton County Economic Development Corporation, here on The Journal.

Thanks for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guest is Matt Gilroy, the Executive Director of the Fulton County Economic Development Corporation.

Matt, when we were leaving that last segment, we were talking about workforce and you talked about workforce attraction, and one of the things that we've heard for years is that people that graduate from high schools here, universities here, whatever, technical schools then have a tendency, some of them to go somewhere else.

And it's almost in a way when you deal with your end of keeping a business here you've done all that work to do all of this.

You don't want them then to take that talent and that skill and go somewhere else.

So what are some of the things you're doing to like say, "Hey, look, stay here in Fulton County, stay in northwest Ohio we've got these great job opportunities, got things that your skill set fits."

So that's another message you guys are tasked with getting out there too.

- Well, first of all, I'll share with you, Steve, I'm not originally from northwest Ohio, and you know, the small town I grew up in I moved away and I always had the mindset of the grass is always greener on the other side.

And the irony in that is now I talk to young people about fertilizing their own yard [Steve] (Laughs) Yeah.

basically make your grass green and you'll enjoy life a lot more.

I do that with my own kids and I do that with myself as well.

But we have created an initiative in Fulton County that I think is very different than most other economic development organizations.

We call it, "Welcome Back Home."

And over the last four years or so, we have hired interns to basically take high school yearbooks and track people that have graduated from Fulton County High schools online, or basically using Facebook and LinkedIn, and understand where they're located now, what they're doing, what education they received, et cetera.

And we now are using that information to try to share with people the opportunity to move back home.

And we're contacting people that now live in you know, Columbus and Cleveland and Cincinnati, and people that live in South Dakota, Montana, and California, and basically saying, "Hey, you're from this area, and we wanna make sure you understand that there are job opportunities here that meet the skills that you have to offer."

Some people are gonna look at that and say, you know something, I really like my remote cabin in the woods in Montana, or I really like to surf.

And you can't really do that on the Tiffin River and a good old Fulton County, Ohio.

Completely understand that.

But there are also other people out there that have family members that live here.

Their family circumstances might have changed.

They may have recognized the education I received in my elementary school years and high school years was really good in my hometown.

I'll take an opportunity to take a look and maybe come back.

So we're trying to find those people and we're doing it proactively by contacting them through social media as well as reaching out to our local media sources such as you today to spread the word that, if you are from Fulton County and you have an interest in maybe taking a look at coming back home, we wanna have a conversation with you, understand what your needs are to make that kind relocation decision and help you through it.

And we recognize we can also help your spouse or significant other, we can provide you with information about schools and educational facilities as well as other amenities around here too.

[Steve] Yeah, well, and it's a good point too because people may move away initially, but then as their life changes, they acquire a spouse, they have a family and they say, "You know what, I liked growing up where I grew up."

Maybe that's part of what they start living through.

I want my child to experience what I did versus where we are right now.

Maybe it's a larger city, maybe it doesn't have the feel that they remember.

So that's part of it too, that fact that, hey, I had a good experience when I grew up there.

Yeah, I moved away to do this right now but my life's changed now.

Maybe I wanna get back to that.

So that's a good point.

And you help them find those pieces, say, "Yeah, you're right, come back home."

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt] That's 100% right.

And I'll also share moms and dads and grandma and grandpas that are listening to this message, if your loved one is back at home for the holidays and you want him or her to stay here, have that conversation [Steve] Sure.

during the holidays, during Thanksgiving and Christmas and so on, and if they're interested in looking at opportunities for employment, have them contact us and we'll help them through that.

[Steve] Yeah, they can become advocates and sales people for you as well.

[Matt] Right on.

The most influential people in anyone's life is their parents and grandparents, right?

[Steve] Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Now one of the things, and I know that when you talk about these, a lot of times with these developments comes some financial terminology, some things that say, "Oh, here's a tax kind of zone or an enterprise zone, or whatever."

So we've got a couple of minutes, talk about, if I hear the term enterprise zone what does that actually mean in layman's terms?

You guys obviously know exactly what you're doing with it and how it works and the people you work with at the organizations.

But what does that mean for the community?

Oh, this is an enterprise zone.

How does that benefit me?

[Matt] How does...

Yes, so how does it benefit the individual?

So first of all, government is full of acronyms, right?

[Steve] Sure.

So we refer to enterprise zones as EZs and community reinvestment areas as CRAs.

So if you hear those terms you're talking to an economic development person.

[Steve] Okay.

An enterprise zone and a community reinvestment area are basically property tax incentives that communities and counties can offer to commercial and industrial businesses and in some cases residential development.

Basically what it is a projection of the amount of taxes that would be created by the new development.

And that projection is usually provided by the county auditor.

And that's an agreement between the county or community and the company that says, if we locate here, if company A locates here and employees a certain amount of people at a certain payroll level, the community is willing to forgive a portion or all of the property taxes over a term that could be up to 15 years.

Usually it's something between, 10 and 15.

And that agreement, a lot of people out in the community are like, "Well, our community is giving the company money."

That's not necessarily the case.

This is a scenario where it's what we refer to as "new money."

The company is just not paying a certain portion of their property taxes over the first term, few years up to 15 of their investment.

Now the reason that a community does this is because a company that's building a facility is usually going to be here for, three or four generations.

So, 60 or 80 years, the community is going to be collecting property taxes on that building.

So it's important for us to try to attract that company here in order to get that tax revenue over the long term.

So it's a similar kind of situation as the Black Friday shopping scenario, right?

You get a discount of 10 or 15% if you go into Kohl's and buy certain things and so on.

And while you're there, the hope is, at least from Kohl's perspective, is that you're buying a whole lot of other things too.

Same kinda thing, from a community's perspective we are hopeful that this investment will lead to future investments, and will also lead to other companies benefiting from the presence of that business.

[Steve] Okay, yeah.

Unfortunately, we're gonna have to leave it there but yeah, that gives us a nice picture and dispel some of the misconceptions about the money that moves back and forth and how it moves.

So, great.

Matt, thank you so much for being here.

Glad to have you on again, and as things happen out there we'd be glad to have you on again to talk about what's going on in Fulton County and the economic development out there.

So thank you again.

- Sure.

- Great.

- Thank you.

I appreciate it.

- Yeah, and you can check us out at wbgu.org and you watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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