There's more to city than ‘cheap'

Savings, slogans not luring jobs - but better promotion of positives might.

By Kevin Leininger
of The News-Sentinel

Thirty-three million dollars.

That's how much Fort Wayne's top job-creation official says Navistar International Corp. could save in a single year by consolidating its engineering and corporate offices here.

So as Andi Udris and others work this week on a last-ditch, long-shot proposal they hope will keep about 1,200 Navistar jobs in Fort Wayne and perhaps attract even more, the question is obvious:

If the low cost of doing business in Fort Wayne is so good for the bottom line, why aren't Navistar and a host of other supposedly profit-driven companies lining up to come here?

The answer, I suspect, says a lot about America's corporate culture – and about this city's need to better promote what it already has instead of excessively dwelling on perceived shortcomings that may be beyond its ability to correct.

“I don't know why more companies don't come here if they want to reduce their overhead,” said Udris, who as president of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance is a key member of the city's Navistar-retention team that brought noted South Carolina site selection consultant Mark Williams to town Monday to help assemble a package attractive enough to “catch Navistar's attention.”

That package, Williams said, “could be above and beyond anything seen before.”

But if $33 million a year couldn't win the attention of a company that until recently was set to consolidate operations in the Chicago suburb of Lisle, Ill., what will?

Neither Udris nor Williams would comment on the specifics of what Fort Wayne is likely to offer in a proposal that would be at least its fourth since 2001. But Udris did discuss concerns that Navistar officials have expressed about doing business here.

Some of the concerns are obvious, and relatively easily (if expensively) addressed: The company's engineering center on Meyer Road and test track on Wayne Trace are old and in an even older industrial area near the company's former truck plant, which closed in 1983. The location and facilities, Udris said, don't exactly “wow” the engineers the company needs to recruit.

Some are being addressed but will take time, such as the company's desire for proximity to leading engineering universities.

Others, such as the desire for better air service, have been addressed in the past – with often-unpleasant results for taxpayers. And still others are mostly beyond the control of Udris and other local officials. Navistar's contract with the union representing its Fort Wayne engineers, United Auto Workers Local 2911, expires this year and Udris noted that the company's engineers in Illinois are not unionized. “We're asking (the UAW) to consider all possible options,” he said.

Union President Tom Burkholder said he hopes the coming negotiations will succeed, but said the work rules that Udris mentioned as a concern “aren't that much of an issue.”

But Udris also mentioned something I've heard expressed by others, including Parkview Health CEO Mike Packnett just last week: When well-educated, skilled workers move to Fort Wayne, they often don't want to leave. The problem is getting them here in the first place.

I guess you could call it the “sexiness” factor. Some cities have it. Fort Wayne doesn't, at least from the outside.

We've seen this before, of course. You can bet Lincoln National Corp.'s expenses went through the roof when the home-grown company moved its headquarters to Philadelphia in 1999. Then-CEO Jon Boscia at the time explained the move would give the company better access to East Coast financial markets, but it was also generally perceived that Boscia lacked the appreciation for and commitment to Fort Wayne demonstrated by his predecessor, Ian Rolland.

In short, Udris said, Fort Wayne lacks a well-known and unique “brand” that will make the city more attractive to would-be executives and the people they would need to recruit should they locate here.

What might that “brand” be?

Well, “Fort Wayne – we're cheap” makes us sound like a sleazy used-car lot.

And “Try us, you'll like us” is too similar to the 1971 ad for Alka-Seltzer. Who wants to move to a city that reminds you of a tummy ache?

But slogans alone will not keep Navistar. Nor, clearly, will cost alone. For executives who want to live near mountains and oceans, in cities perceived to have more “sex appeal,” or who simply suffer from delusions of grandeur, there is little Fort Wayne can do to change their minds. Udris and elected officials have no choice but to pursue Navistar, but might be better-served to court suitors who will appreciate what Fort Wayne has, or could become.