Two rural Georgia counties have found ways to make themselves players in the game of economic development by leveraging their unique assets. Liberty County – where Target is constructing a 1.5 million-square-foot distribution center – touts a growing civilian labor force augmented by an available, well-trained ex-military work force ready to work. Carroll County – where Decoma International has opened its automotive fascia manufacturing facility – has paved the way to progress, literally, by using state and federal funds to add necessary roads and other utilities to its new industrial park.

Liberty County, Georgia, has a surprising asset – one that proved crucial in landing Target’s 1.5 million-square-foot regional distribution center now under construction in Midway.

An available, quality labor supply awaited there. Better yet, this labor supply was well within the company’s required 30-mile drive radius thanks to the presence of Fort Stewart, home of the 3rd Infantry Division and the largest Army installation east of the Mississippi River.

Hundreds of personnel a month leave the military while stationed at Fort Stewart. Many are looking to stay in the coastal Georgia community, providing a unique supplement to the civilian labor force in the area. “The most crucial factor in landing Target was an available labor supply and the quality of that labor supply,” says Ronald Tolley, chief executive officer of the Liberty County Development Authority. “The military personnel at Fort Stewart add a unique dimension to our labor force – they are cross-trained and are accustomed to using computers, and they are in good supply.”

Target announced its plans in January 2005 to be the first project in Liberty County’s new 5,300-acre MidCoast Business Center adjacent to Interstate-95. Site work and construction have begun, with the facility scheduled for completion in the summer of 2007. Target plans to initially hire 500 people, with hiring beginning in early 2007. Several hundred more team members are expected to be added during the first five years of the facility’s operation.

For a rural area in particular, being the home of a military installation like Fort Stewart provides an asset that helps make the area more marketable for economic development. Personnel retiring from the military at Fort Stewart possess qualities that are sometimes difficult to find in the traditional labor force, Tolley says. “In addition to their training and computer skills, they have an extra good work ethic, they’re punctual and they’re drug-free. They are all high school graduates, and many are graduates of two- and four-year colleges.”

In addition, Fort Stewart has some 13,000 military spouses, many of whom want and need good jobs. With tours of duty increasing to seven years or more, these spouses are even more attractive because they are long-term employees, Tolley says. He adds that 98 percent of them are high school graduates and a quarter to a third have some post-secondary education.

Liberty County’s total labor force is 22,000 plus 20,000 troops at Fort Stewart and the county has seen tremendous growth in its population over the past 35 years. “Counter to national trends, we’ve seen an increase in manufacturing employment – by more than double over the past couple of decades,” Tolley says. Population has increased from 18,000 in 1970 to more than 62,000 in the 2000 census.

Of course, it takes more than good workers to grab the attention of a company like Target, and Liberty County has what it takes. “Midway was the ideal location for us to locate a new distribution center,” says Mitch Stover, senior vice president of distribution services for Target Corp. “The partnership we received from the Liberty County Development Authority and the State of Georgia was extraordinary. We look forward to building a long-lasting relationship with the Midway community.”

Tolley notes that funding for the new industrial park launched by the Target project required “a unique mix of Liberty County Development Authority, city, county, and state funds. This could only have been accomplished by visionary officials for a signature corporation like Target.

“We were ecstatic to be able to kick off our new industrial park with a project of the magnitude of Target,” he adds. “We’ve been extremely fast-paced since the announcement in January and have been able to obtain federal and state grants to put infrastructure in the park – roads, water and sewer – that is now well under construction and will be completed by the end of 2005.”

Having Target in the community will only serve to bring more prosperity there, Tolley believes. “Everybody recognizes Target as a leader in the retailing field. It’s looked at like McDonald’s is in the food industry, and we all know that McDonald’s does a good, thorough site search before selecting a new location. Once it has made that selection, it tells everybody else in the industry ‘take a look here.’ It’s a seal of approval. Everybody knows Target’s not going to gamble with a $95 million investment. It’s a wonderful marketing tool for us.”

When Decoma International Inc. announced in 2002 that it would build its new automotive supply manufacturing plant in Carrollton, it was seen as not only a source for much-needed new jobs, but as a catalyst for future development for the rural Georgia community.

As the first tenant in the 109-acre Plowshare Road industrial site, Decoma literally paved the way for more development. State assistance provided access roads and other infrastructure into the site that would make the park attractive to more industrial projects.

Decoma International opened its new facility in Carroll County in August of 2004, where it produces fascia for Mercedes vehicles assembled in Vance, Ala. Decoma is a division of Magna International, a Canadian-based company that is the largest automotive components supplier in the world. It invested some $100 million in the new plant and created 300 news jobs. Decoma built a 300,000-square-foot facility on a 35-acre site, with long-range plans for the facility to expand to 600,000 square feet and a total of 500 jobs.

“Decoma is a Tier 1 automotive supplier and was highly recruited by multiple communities in multiple sites,” says Slater Barr, president and CEO of Carroll Tomorrow, Carroll County’s economic development organization. “The announcement was the result of cooperation between the State of Georgia, the Carrollton community, and the company. The Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, and the Georgia Electric Membership Corporation assisted Decoma in its evaluation of communities throughout Georgia.” Other partners included the City of Carrollton, the Carrollton Payroll Development Authority, Carroll County and the Carroll County Development Authority.

“Ultimately, we were able to show that we could pull together the necessary resources including the land and utilities needed to suit Decoma’s very quick timeframe to begin construction,” Barr says.

Carroll County, located 45 minutes southwest of Atlanta and 90 miles east of Birmingham, has seen an explosive growth in population, from under 90,000 in the 2000 census to nearly 102,000, according to the 2004 U.S. Census estimate.

With nearly 80 percent of its land area devoted to agriculture, particularly the dairy, livestock and poultry industries; Carroll County manages to be competitive for national and international companies. It is home to more than 100 manufacturing facilities, four fully serviced, publicly owned industrial parks and numerous private sites.

Decoma International was able to take advantage of the West Carrollton Enterprise District, which was created just weeks before the company’s announcement of the Georgia facility. “It was one of the factors that made the Carrollton site more competitive,” says Barr. “The incentives available through the enterprise zone weren’t available in any other location and that definitely gave us a competitive edge.”

The enterprise zone makes possible certain incentives for companies that locate there, including state and local property tax abatements (except school taxes) and fee waivers. A company must create and maintain at least five full-time job equivalents and have a “significant positive economic impact on the area” to qualify.

Decoma International certainly has had that positive impact on Carroll County, officials say. Over the past two years, Carroll Tomorrow has recruited a number of industrial plants, including the recent announcement that Bobcat Co. will build a new facility to manufacture attachments for compact equipment used in the construction, industrial, landscaping and agricultural industries.