Columbus recruiters fighting against job-loss prediction

It wasn’t that off the cuff during a recent State of Economic Development luncheon when Bill Murphy took a slight poke at a forecast earlier this year by the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Development that Columbus would lose 1,000 jobs in 2016.

“We’re working pretty hard to make sure that their predictions for our economic outlook don’t come true,” the executive vice president of economic development at the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce told those gathered at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center.

After all, it wasn’t a matter of Murphy making a generic promise that he and the chamber staff will deliver more jobs to the community. A day earlier, Cincinnati-based Convergys had announced that it is filling the void that will be left as call center operator Road America pulls out of the city at its facility on Victory Drive. Convergys has pledged to create 450 jobs within the next 18 months.

“We’ve got some great momentum in 2016 and I’m excited to see what the rest of the year will bring,” the chamber executive said.

Both Murphy and his fellow business recruiter, Brian Sillitto, senior vice president of economic development, understand that 2014 and 2015 weren’t banner years in terms of creating new leads for companies looking to expand their presence in Columbus. After all, capital investment into new and existing plants for long-term stays and the creation of good-paying jobs are the name of their game.

“I personally always feel pressure to execute on our mission,” Sillitto said. “I wasn’t satisfied with the results of 2015, but they are what they are. But moving forward, I think, with this Convergys announcement, and with some of the other projects that we have in the pipeline, I truly believe that our best days are still to come in 2016. There’s a lot of good projects that we’re working that we think are going to come to fruition.”

It boils down to numbers. The chamber fielded fewer than 50 leads for new projects by companies in 2015, which was just over a third of the total in 2011 and roughly half the number in 2012. Prospect leads, as crucial to economic developers as a good farm system is to a Major League Baseball team, began to tumble off from those peak years.

A glance at 2015 shows five companies, four in Columbus and one in nearby West Point, Ga., investing collectively $8.7 million into their expansions and creating 260 new jobs. Those companies were Ankerpak, BD&K Foods, ITC Security, Masterbuilt and Path-Tec. Those businesses retained a combined 230 workers on top of that.

But those figures pale in comparison with capital investment of more than $165 million in 2011, along with 1,041 new and retained jobs in the area. The total dropped to $77.5 million and 1,297 jobs in 2012, but bounced back with $181 million in investment and 2,435 jobs in 2013. The following year, 2014, was also very solid with $136.5 million in capital money spent leading to 1,135 jobs. The bottom fell out last year.

Murphy is confident a turnaround is on the way. He and Sillitto attended Hannover Messe, a major industrial trade show in Germany, earlier this month. Their economic development competitors were there as well, with plenty of the 5,000 visitors from across the U.S. meeting with prospects. Murphy alone will attend a second trade show, Farnborough in England, in July.

“We’ve identified a handful of trade shows, really geared around manufacturing, and one very specific around aerospace, that we attend and try to identify companies that may have an interest in expanding in the North American market,” said Murphy, noting it’s not as hit and miss as one might think. Companies are “pre-qualified” by a consulting firm as a good potential fit for Columbus, with meetings set up in advance with their representatives.

From an initial meeting, it can be anywhere from 18 months to five or more years before a company actually has a physical presence in a community. That recruiting process, which typically includes working with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, remains confidential until many of the details are ironed out and a commitment is made by a firm.

“I will tell you aerospace, obviously, with what’s been going on with Pratt & Whitney, has always been a major thrust for us,” Murphy said. “And last year, when we attended the Paris Air Show, we talked to two (aerospace) companies that were actually in the site selection process and had already identified Georgia and Columbus as among those communities that were competing for projects.”

Pratt & Whitney has been a major success story for Columbus, with its long presence on Macon Road and a satellite operation in Muscogee Technology Park. Jet engine overhauls and blade forging are among their manufacturing services and products. The company employs about 1,100 workers who earn very good pay.

Still, while call-center positions aren’t typically thought of as high paying or decent benefits, Sillitto said Convergys is a great fit for the city at a time that it needs stability with new jobs. The overall process to land the employer, while not easy, wasn’t as exhausting as some can be, he said.

“It must have been a few days after we found out that Road America was leaving that we put out kind of a full-court press to all sorts of different consultants, real-estate brokers, our partners at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, that, hey, we’ve got a 25,000-square-foot call center, a plug-and-play facility, that’s going to be coming on the market,” Sillitto said. “And lo and behold, we got four really good leads of companies that were interested in that building.”

The Development Authority of Columbus owns the Victory Drive property through the entity, Columbus Economic Development Corp., thus the ability to put together term and lease rates for Convergys to choose from and that worked for the company. The call-center operator also was searching other areas of the Southeast for not only a facility, but an available workforce that would ease ramping up service.

“There was a lot of work during a fairly compressed short time frame,” Sillitto said. “Was it easy? No, it was complicated. There were a lot of different parts. ... I’m glad we were able to backfill that space sooner than later, and to get a lot of people back to work and attract new jobs. So at the end of the day, it’s a win-win.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Columbus recruiters fighting against job-loss prediction."