fcda 2008 end of the year report

FAYETTECOUNTY

DEVELOPMENTAUTHORITY

2008End of the Year Report

FAYETTECOUNTY


Matt Forshee, FCDA President/CEO

Letter From The President/CEOThe year 2007 ended with a lot of great excitement for Fayette County. We had recently announced the location of the first US facility for Sany America, a facility which would bring in 600 jobs and over $150mm in investment over the next 10 years. We also had a number of smaller companies make announcements of relocations to or expansions in Fayette County. Additionally, we announced that Clayton State University was locating a new satellite campus in Peachtree City. Increasing the availability of higher education has long been one of our goals as an organization and we were excited to see some of those goals moving to fruition. We also announced a redesign of our brand and web site in an effort to update our marketing materials and stay abreast of new technological resources. It set up 2008 to be a banner year.

For many communities though, 2008 ended up being very difficult. Like many communities, we have had closure announcements that resulted due to our current recession. Earlier this year, our largest employer, Panasonic Automotive, announced that they were going to be closing the manufacturing portion of their facility in Peachtree City. This amounts to a loss of 500 jobs over the next year. At the same time, they will be keeping 600 jobs here in the fields of headquarter operations, engineering and R&D. Additionally, they will be expanding their design engineering operation and in fact are already in the hiring process for those positions.

We have also had positive successes. We saw the announcement of four new projects in Fayette County this year with Hoffman + Krippner, Dixie Aerospace, FieldTurf Tarkett and NCR. Hoffman + Krippner is a German company who opened their US headquarters here. Dixie Aerospace is an aviation supplier company who relocated their US headquarters, product design and distribution operations to Peachtree City. FieldTurf Tarkett is the sports division of the internationally known Tarkett flooring group. They relocated the division’s world headquarters from Montreal to Peachtree City. Finally, NCR is establishing a world class customer service center of excellence in Peachtree City, with US and international operations occurring from the facility. Between these four projects, we saw over 700 jobs announced in Fayette County in 2008 and an investment of $30 mm. Plus, NCR’s operation will bring in 125 trainees per week during the year, all of whom will stay in our hotels, shop in our stores and dine in our restaurants and all of whom will spend sales and lodging taxes.

In the end, we feel that 2008 has ended on a positive note. Will 2009 be good? The pundits say that it will be hard and that the economy won’t come out of the recession until at least 3rd quarter 2009. Here’s hoping we’re on the early part of that curve. At the least, FCDA will keep working to make that so. Our best for a prosperous 2009.

FAYETTECOUNTY


Board of Directors

Randy HayesFayette County

Chairman

Jerry CobbAirport Authority

Joe MortonCity of Fayetteville

Dr. Bryan EdwardsFayette County

Phil SmelleyFayette County

Secretary/Treasurer

Todd StricklandDev. Auth. of Peachtree City

John WoodyTown of Tyrone

Hollis HarrisFayette County

Dot KiteFayette County

Matt ForsheePresident/CEO

Amanda FieldsOffice Manager

FAYETTECOUNTY


FAYETTECOUNTY


Projects in 2008 - By The Numbers

38 37

2118

48

Leads Requests for Proposals

InitialVisits

RepeatVisits

Locations OngoingProjects

FAYETTECOUNTY


Project Successes

Hoffman + Krippner

Internationally headquartered in Buchen/ Odenwald, Germany, Hoffman + Krippner designs, develops and produces innovative input solutions for customers in diverse sectors, ranging from the electronic industry, medical technology, engineering and aviation through to military engineering. One of their recent products is a foil based, antibacterial keyboard for use on medical equipment. In Fayette County, H+K is opening its US headquarters and north American sales office. Their main interest in Fayette County was our quality of life, corporate environment and proximity to Hartsfield- Jackson Atlanta International airport.

Dixie Aerospace

Dixie Aerospace is the industry leader in the distribution of aerospace bearings and PMA development. Dixie Aerospace is an authorized distributor for a majority of the aerospace bearing manufacturers. With sales and distribution points around the globe, Dixie Aerospace services customers worldwide. In locating in Fayette County, Dixie Aerospace was looking for a community with a strong commitment to both corporate interests as well as family interests. It didn’t hurt that we had the perfect sized building, allowing for their recent growth and future expansion.

FAYETTECOUNTY


Project Successes

FieldTurf Tarkett

FieldTurf Tarkett, the world leader in sports surfacing, relocated its worldwide headquarters to Peachtree City. Here they will establish their base for their international operations and sales teams, employing 30 people over the next 5 years. Their main interest in Fayette County was our quality of life, corporate environment and proximity to Hartsfield- Jackson Atlanta International airport.

NCR

NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is a global technology company leading how the world connects, interacts and transacts with business. NCR’s assisted- and self-service solutions and comprehensive support services address the needs of retail, financial, travel, health care, hospitality, entertainment, gaming and public sector organizations in more than 100 countries. NCR is co-locating several key components of its Worldwide Customer Service operations to Peachtree City and is creating 610 new jobs in the next 26 months. The company will co-locate an NCR Learning Center and its Customer Care Center hub for the Americas region with the company’s existing Global Service Materials operation in Peachtree City. As part of the Learning Center, NCR will train up to 6,250 people a year in Peachtree City. This required close proximity and high-quality access to a major airport as well as the type of surroundings that befit a training center.

Visitor Tracking

In December 2007, we launched a new web page with new features and new ways to learn about Fayette County and the businesses here. Our most popular new page has been our local job listings page which lists industrial and professional jobs available in Fayette County.

When we launched our new web site, we signed up for the free Google Analytics tracking program. When a visitor comes to our web site, Google records a lot of unique data about that visitor for our behalf. Over the course of the last year, we’ve received over 30,000 visitors to our site, an average of 86 a day. That’s a lot for a little community like ours. These visitors spoke 35 languages and came from 88 countries. The chart on the right shows the number of unique visitors we received each month.

June2,377

May1,155

April1,278

January791 March

1,327

FAYETTECOUNTY


Website Activity

February895

July2892August

2436

September2407

October2906

November2337

December1560

Top Ten FCDA Website Foreign Visitors’ Countries of Origin

1...............................Canada

2..................................France

3............................Germany

4.................................Ireland

5.............United Kingdom

6.............................Hungary

7. ...................................India

8...............................Belgium

9............................Romania

10.....................Switzerland

200 Courthouse Square | Fayetteville, Georgia | USA | 30214P: +1.770.461.5253 | F: +1.770.460.0259 | www.fayettega.org

fcda 2008 end of the year report

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