August 1, 2005

Humana Adding 1,400 Jobs in Kentucky

Health insurer Humana Inc., the largest employer in Kentucky that's headquartered in the state, announced it will add about 1,400 workers in the Bluegrass State. The company, based in Louisville, is adding jobs in customer service, sales, support, IT and clinical sectors. Humana considered expanding in Florida and Ohio before settling on adding jobs in Kentucky.

www.BioIndustrySouth.com Goes Live

Southern Business & Development has launched its third Web site to date, www.BioIndustrySouth.com. The new site follows the successful debut of www.SouthernAutoCorridor.com in January of 2004. BioIndustrySouth.com is designed to provide companies and executives involved in the life sciences information on opportunities and sites in the South, the world's third-largest economy.

Texas Investing $50 Million to Fund Genome Project

The Texas Enterprise Fund is investing $50 million to form the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that the institute will create about 5,000 jobs with an average salary of $60,000 over the next 10 years. Funding will be given to Texas A&M and Lexicon Genetics. Lexicon will use $35 million to create two copies of its mouse cell line library, which will then be provided to the institute. The remaining $15 million will be used to remodel Texas A&M's System Health Science Center's Institute of Biosciences and Technology in Houston and for the construction of a new building on Texas A&M's primary campus in College Station, Tex.

Florida Headed for Real Estate Crisis?

A report done by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) indicated that the estimated median household income in Florida was 26 percent below the amount needed to buy a median-priced home in the state. The report stated that growing speculative real estate activity in Florida has led some observers to conclude that localized supply and demand imbalances may be forming in many coastal markets. The FDIC reported that there are 55 boom real estate markets in the U.S. and over 20 percent of those are in Florida. Many parts of the Sunshine State are experiencing growth management difficulties as schools, roads and other infrastructure are well beyond capacity. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently signed three bills to deal with growth management in the state. In a related note, the Agency for Workforce Innovation reported that Florida added 228,110 jobs from June 2004 to June 2005, the fastest rate of annual job growth among the nation's 10-most populated states.

Magazine Names Rice University No. 1 in Nanotechnology

In July, Houston's Rice University was ranked the No. 1 higher learning center in the U.S. for nanotechnology commercialization for this year. The recognition was given out by Small Times magazine. Rice was issued 15 nanotechnology patents last year, the most by any school in micro and nanotech patents.

Editorial: Lawsuits Fly in Carolina over Dell

The North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law filed a legal challenge in late June against economic incentives offered to Dell, Inc. by the State of North Carolina, Forsyth County and the city of Winston-Salem. Much of the new Dell plant in Winston-Salem has already been built and we doubt this lawsuit will have any effect on Dell opening its new manufacturing and distribution center, slated for first phase completion in early fall. Dell earned $242 million in incentives to build its 1,500-employee facility in Winston-Salem.

We're going to write about this one more time. One of North Carolina's biggest problems when it comes to economic development is the high-level of skepticism that prevails in that state. Conservative think tanks appear to operate on every other street corner. Memo to skeptics and conservative think tanks in N.C.: Your state fell economically like no other state in the South from 2000 to 2003. Plant closings were daily occurrences during that time and new industry announcements were at one-third the level of a normal North Carolina year. In 2004 you bolstered your incentive program and look what happened (see SB&D 100 on www.SB-D.com). You picked yourself up and added more projects from one year to the next than any state has in the 13-year SB&D 100 history. It's a sad state of affairs when you litigate against tremendous economic development success.

mike@sb-d.com

Automotive News: Honda to Expand Alabama Plant Again

One of the automotive industry's leading publications revealed in July that Honda will expand its Alabama plant again. The Japanese automaker just finished putting in a $600 million second line at the east Alabama facility that houses nearly 5,000 workers. There have been reports in the Japanese media that Honda officials have already made the decision to expand the Alabama plant, citing lack of capacity of plants in Japan. The Alabama expansion means something else; it won't be too long before Honda will be in a full-fledged site search for another assembly plant in the U.S.

Die Caster Building Plant in LaGrange, Ga.

Ae Group, a German automotive and aerospace aluminum die-casting parts manufacturer is building its first U.S. plant in LaGrange, Ga. The company is investing $15 million in the deal and creating about 300 new jobs. Ae Group's customers include DaimlerChrysler, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW and GM and a variety of aerospace companies.

Next