By Francis B. Allgood
fallgood@scbiznews.com
Published May 12, 2010

With a heated governor’s race nearing the June 8 primary, attorney Leighton Lord said South Carolina leaders need to understand why Boeing Co. chose North Charleston.

It’s not all about incentives, as Lord’s presentation at InnoVenture Southeast 2010 yesterday was preceded two hours earlier by Southwest Airlines announcement to fly out of Charleston and Greenville-Spartanburg without any incentives from the state.

“In the governor’s race, we hear a lot about creating jobs,” said Lord, an attorney with Nexsen Pruet LLC in Columbia who was the team leader on the Boeing Co. project in North Charleston. “Think about the grid and ways to make the top lines.”

The grid Lord speaks of is the pros and cons as to why a company relocates. The key areas Boeing looked at were unionization, tax structure, laws and the existing work force.

In Boeing’s case, the company was looking to build a new Dreamliner facility in either Washington state or North Charleston where the aviation giant already has a presence.

As a right-to-work state surrounded by states with low union activity, South Carolina was attractive not only for Boeing but for attracting non-unionized suppliers. State officials also dropped the corporate property tax for Boeing from 10.5% to 4%, Lord said.

“Our tax structure is the highest,” Lord said, who is also a Republican candidate for attorney general. “All South Carolina did was give the manufacturer parity to Washington’s 4% property tax.”

In 2007, Adex Machining Technologies LLC in Greenville had a small operation where employees made about $15 per hour. Today, the low-tech manufacturer of advanced aerospace materials has 50 employees with an average wage of $60,000.

“Tax incentives play a small factor in what state companies locate their factories in,” said Jason Premo, co-owner of Adex. “Work force is their No. 1 concern.”

Premo, also a presenter at InnoVenture, said unfilled jobs in aviation are expected to grow to 200,000 within three years. He challenged the audience to invest more in training employees.

“Boeing and others need a skilled work force to continue to grow,” he said. “I would like that to come from our state.”