Selected quotes published in Southern Business & Development 1993-1997

"While there isn't much I can do here to dispell these types of images and feelings, I can say without a doubt that opportunities for the national media to write this style of material will become more and more frequent. I would like to suggest that if the national media wants to continue to trash the South after a major economic development coup, they load themselves up with plenty of new material. They are going to need it for many more years."

Michael C. Randle, publisher of SB&D in a 1993 edition

"After decades of tectonic shifts in the balance of regional power in this country, the South's view of growth still seems to echo the notion that economic progress would give the Civil War's losers the last word. Now it is worth asking whether a modern version of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, which doomed the Confederacy, is succeeding at last"

New York Times, Oct. 31, 1993, and repeated in the SB&D winter 2005 edition

"As an incentive to new industry, we'll pay 100% of a company's employees' state income tax. That goes for all existing industry, too"

Steve Mayberry, who was the Economic Development Director for the Florida Department of Commerce at the time. Mayberry tricked a SB&D reporter when he made the above claim while being interviewed. Florida doesn't have a personal state income tax! The quote was from the fall 1994 issue

"We would like you to come to our county. We have had people move away to get a new job. We need new buildings. We need more money.....If you come, I would be happy. I am not begging. I am asking nicely."

Candace Edwards, a second-grader from Sparta, NC. Candace wrote this letter, which was published in the fall 1994 edition, to executives of Bristol Compressors in an attempt to help lure the company to her small town in northwestern NC. It worked. Bristol located in Sparta and announced 750 jobs.

"There is a strange dichotomy that has allowed the nation's business and industry to migrate southward in droves for the better part of a generation now, and yet has also allowed the image of the South as an undereducated, backward-looking region to remain firmly fixed in the public mind."

Mark Kelly, SB&D's contributing editor at the time, in the summer 1995 edition

"Deists have better attitudes. They work harder - just ask their employers."

Tom Wesley, of the Wesley Company, a commercial real estate firm based in Atlanta. Wesley referred to "Bible belt labor" in the South and his quote was published in spring 1995 edition.

"Over the next decade or two, then, the (Southern) region as a whole can be expected to experience a tremendous rise in immigration levels from other regions of the U.S., from Mexico, from places all over the world."

Mark Kelly, SB&D's contributing editor, fall 1995 issue.

"The secret to the growth of this company isn't equipment or technology. It the people doing the work. I believe quality people do quality work and some of the best people you'll find anywhere are right here Lafayette and southern Louisiana."

Matthew G. Stuller, CEO and founder of Stuller Settings, a jewelry manufacturer headquartered in Lafayette, La. Stuller's comments were published in the winter 1996 issue.

"For one thing, it's easier to get our customers to visit us in Tampa than it was in New Jersey ... especially in the winter."

Mike Modzelewski, senior vice president of Melitta NA, which moved its HQ from N.J. to Tampa in the mid-1990s. Modzelewski's quote was published in the fall 1996 edition of SB&D.

"I am so sick of the national media referring to the South as 'the U.S.'s Mexico.' That is so inaccurate that it's pathetic. It makes me mad as hell. If the South is such a third world place, then why is it dominating this nation's economy as evidenced by almost a 40 percent share of this entire country's GNP? Is everyone moving to 'Mexico?' Did UPS move its HQ to Atlanta, Mexico? CNN, then, is operating and headquartered in the 'U.S.'s Mexico?' Mercedes, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, Saturn and other huge automotive players, are they are placing their U.S. plants in Mexico? Come on. Stop it. Stop it, puuuuuuuleeeeeeeze! You know what is so much more accurate? The South is not this country's Mexico. Nope. The South has its own Mexico. It is appropriately called 'Mexico."

Michael C. Randle in the spring 1997 edition.

"I heard Hartley talking to a guy from Los Angeles recently. The guy from Los Angeles was complaining about L.A. traffic and Hartley said, 'I can't even imagine driving through that every day. Between my home and my office, there's one traffic light. And when that one is red, I cuss."

Meridian, Miss.-based Peavey Electronics spokesperson Jere Hess in the Summer 1996 edition. Hess was talking about Hartley Powell, the CEO of Peavey Electronics and his commute to and from his home and office in Meridian.