Nashville Area Charts String of Successes With Regional Cooperation
Published Apr 30, 2009
Dean Solon, left, is CEO of Shoals Technology Group, and John Maros is vice president of business development.
In the Nashville area, 2008 will be remembered for ushering in a challenging economic climate and for record-breaking corporate relocations and expansions spawned by regional cooperation.
That was demonstrably the case when Clarksville-Montgomery County successfully landed Dow Corning Corp. and Hemlock Semiconductor LLC’s new solar-grade, polysilicon manufacturing facility. The $1.2 billion investment will create at least 500 jobs at the facility, which will be built in Commerce Park, a TVA-certified megasite.
It also will serve as an anchor for the region’s efforts to create green-technology enterprise and jobs.
In Portland in Robertson County, Shoals Technology Group is building a new manufacturing facility to produce solar panels. The company is relocating its headquarters to Gallatin
in Sumner County and will eventually employ at least 300 people in the region.
“We searched in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky, and ended up being very impressed with the people of Sumner County and how they all worked together,” says John Maros, vice president of business development. “They all acted as true partners with each other, and with us. That made them stand head and shoulders above most of the other areas that we spoke to.
The people at the state, county and local level have all been very accommodating.”
The Hemlock news came on top of a year that also included Sanderson Pipe Corp.’s $29 million investment in the Clarksville-Montgomery County Corporate Business Park and Avanti Manufacturing and Panattoni Construction Co.’s plans to develop facilities there.
For James Chavez, the Hemlock announcement came after a two-year search process that he says was one of the most exhaustive in which he has ever participated.
“For reasons that included security, availability of labor and cost, they looked at sites on nearly every continent,” says Chavez, president and CEO of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council.
“It was an incredibly detailed search, and we got to the table because we had survived the process of becoming a certified megasite through TVA, because it’s an incredibly rigorous process,” he says. “It took us three tries to be certified, and going through all that benefited us.”
Other factors, including proximity to the power grid, also kept Clarksville-Montgomery County in the game, but being able to draw in reinforcements from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and other economic development organizations was of immeasurable help as well.
“When you talk to corporate investors in this area, they’ll tell you that the region works well together, and that we have a high level of trust with each other,” Chavez says.
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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