Growth summit reveals project that could generate 1,000 jobs

Lee Erwin reporting
lerwin@clarksvillenow.com

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The Clarksville Area Chamber of Commerce held its Third Annual Growth Summit Wednesday, August 28 at the William O. Beach Civic Hall. Local business leaders heard from guest speakers from the economic development, tourism, education and military sectors on what makes a community ideal for industry developers and sit selectors.

At the meeting, Mike Evans, Executive Director of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Industrial Development Board gave an update on local economic developments and talked about a couple of projects that are in the works including a possible automotive industry sector company with an investment of over $700 million, generating around 1,000 jobs. Evans said that Clarksville-Montgomery County is one of two sites under consideration and a decision on that project could come this fall. Another aviation project for the area is also still under consideration and is what Evans referred to along with the automotive project as in the final round.

Evans added that last year the community responded to over 36 requests for information about projects and they are still in the process with three of them and there have been eight requests for information this fiscal year

Austin Peay State University President, Tim Hall, began the program with the topic of education, talking about graduating students with degrees that he called $1 million income factories. “They are going out and 50 percent of them are planted within 50 miles of Austin Peay. So we are producing income factories that are producing a million dollars and they are staying right around Clarksville-Montgomery County,” said Hall.

Hall also talked about the economic impact that APSU has on the Clarksville-Montgomery County community. For Clarksville those figures are $234 million in business revenue, $100 million in wages and salaries, 3,298 jobs and $13.63 million in state and local taxes. In Montgomery County the figures read $201.2 million in business revenue, $92.04 million in wages and salaries, 2,849 jobs and $11.24 million in state and local taxes.

With record enrollment taking place at Austin Peay, Hall touched on the construction of three new residence halls to be occupied by students this fall and a new mathematics and computer science building which is near completion. Expansion also took place at the APSU facility at Fort Campbell and is planned for the Trahern building as well. Renovations will also soon be underway at Governors Stadium and the Dunn Center.

Representing Fort Campbell, Colonel David Dellinger, Garrison Commander on Post talked about the future of the Army and how some changes will affect the Clarksville-Montgomery County Community. Dellinger first praised the communities surrounding Fort Campbell, including Clarksville-Montgomery County, for the overwhelming support shown soldiers and their families.

Dellinger talked about the 2011 budget act which is reducing the Army from about 580,000 to 490,000 soldiers. “Fort Campbell, because of our great strategic position, politically and geographically, plus what we give to the fight and our ability to deploy from here we lost only about 40-45 people,” said Dellinger. Dellinger added that by 2017 Fort Campbell will be the third largest Army installation behind Fort Bragg and Fort Hood.

An overview of Post presented by Dellinger showed active duty military numbered 30,179 and family members were 53,116 with 60 percent of the assigned soldiers and their families living off Post. Fort Campbell also has 2,598 employees and 3,489 contract employees and there is $492 million in ongoing construction at Fort Campbell.

Tourism was next on the growth summit agenda which featured Lee Curtis, Director of Program Development for the Tennessee Department of Tourism who discussed the economic impact of tourism on both the state and local level.

Curtis said for the sixth year in a row over $1 billion was generated in state and local tax revenue and for every dollar spent in promoting tourism across the state the return on the investment was $19.

Another guest speaker at the summit was Mike Mullis, President and CEO of J.M. Mullis Inc. Mullis shared his insight on economic development projects in today’s market and touched on what he called three near misses on new industrial development for Clarksville-Montgomery County

Mullis said in spite of those industries not locating here for various reasons there is some good news. “We think this is a location that is so solid in doing business that we will put a major operation here, it just takes time,” Mullis said. Mullis added that Clarksville-Montgomery County has some great opportunities and it is a very dynamic community and more communities like it are needed in Tennessee.

The featured speaker at Wednesday’s growth summit was Tennessee Deputy Governor Claude Ramsey who discussed economic development in the state. One of the first things Ramsey highlighted to aid communities in bringing in business was schools and education. “You can’t talk about economic development without talking about schools because you have got to have a prepared work force,” said Ramsey.

Ramsey talked about technology and said the people who will need a job in the future are going to need new technological skills and communities will have to prepare a good trainable workforce. Ramsey added that the community sets the tone for the importance of education and a good job and the education process has to be changed.

The importance of city and county government working together in the community and pooling their resources to increase economic development was emphasized by Ramsey. “I’ve seen communities where they took those resources and fought each other and that’s just dumb as a rock. You don’t have enough to fight each other and you need all of those resources pooled together to make something happen for your community,” Ramsey said.

Also on the subject of city and county government Ramsey said to make sure that officials are elected to office that can work together to make something happen. He said it was important to elect those people who are willing to take the chance when it really doesn’t matter to them who gets the credit.

Ramsey also mentioned the bad luck with one of the areas most well known industrial developments, Hemlock Semiconductor. “Something will happen with Hemlock at some point. That market will change and something good will happen. There’s a lot of money invested there and the owners of that facility will figure out some way to use it,” Ramsey said.