Charleston, Everett WA Collaborate on Boeing Expansion to SC

By Seattle Times business staff

Boeing is rolling out the red carpet in Everett this week, along with some of its local suppliers and officials who promote the aerospace industry in Snohomish County. All will play host to a high-level delegation of economic-development officials from Charleston, S.C.

That has raised a few eyebrows among local aerospace boosters fearful of job poaching, though none would say so publicly.

The visiting South Carolina team is led by David Ginn, president of the Charleston Regional Development Authority, one of the leading players in Charleston's successful campaign last year to beat Everett for the 787 Dreamliner second assembly line.

In an interview Friday, Ginn said his group will tour the Boeing Everett facility and have breakfast with their economic development counterparts in Snohomish County. But Ginn wouldn't name any of the companies he will meet with during the three-day visit.

Does he hope some of those companies will open plants in Charleston?

"We want to understand how we can best position the Charleston area to meet Boeing's needs," Ginn said. "So, yes."

Boeing, too, wants to help get Charleston up and running.

"The ultimate objective for all involved is partnership and education for long-term, mutual success through and for the 787 Dreamliner program," said Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel.

But why is the Snohomish County Economic Development Council (EDC) so keen to help out?

The answer seems to be that local officials believe they need to support Boeing's broader interests, and that if it's good for Boeing and the 787 it will ultimately be good for Everett, too.

The EDC is a private nonprofit organization that works with government officials and local businesses to promote the local economy. EDC Chief Executive Deborah Knutson sent out invitations to a breakfast this coming Tuesday with Ginn's delegation.

In a phone interview, one of the breakfast invitees, Michael Zubovic, an executive with Aviation Technical Services of Everett, read an excerpt from the invitation explaining the EDC's rationale.

Knutson wrote that she and Ginn "met at a conference in early December and decided, with Boeing's support, that we will work together to help in any way we can, to grow the Boeing Company in both locations."

Zubovic said he sees no issue in sitting down with the Charleston team.

"We'd have loved the second line. That didn't happen," he said. "The worst thing we can do is react in any kind of vindictive way."

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon, an EDC board member, said he received assurances that "there's no poaching and jobs won't be lost" on this visit.

"I'm not interested in having South Carolina poach our suppliers," he said.

Reardon offered another rationale: We could learn how to be more like them.

He said the EDC wants to learn what the economic- development officials in Charleston are doing "that we can transfer."

Reardon conceded that to win the second assembly line South Carolina provided tax breaks, land and upfront money — together estimated at upward of $1 billion — that this state cannot legally offer to a single private company.

"They did things we can't do, that we're not constitutionally allowed to do," said Reardon. "It's more, 'Are there applicable models or actions (South Carolina used) that with slight tweaks we can replicate?' "

— Dominic Gates