10th Anniversary Edition Introduction

Ten Top 10s

By Lee Burlett

It wasn't difficult coming up with a theme for SB&D's 10th anniversary edition. Everyone loves a good ranking. When discussing what we would do for this issue, we realized we had 10 years of data that no other publication had. In fact, we realized we could publish more rankings than could possibly be tolerated by even the most astute reader. So we settled with 10 and came up with a "Ten Top 10s" theme for a 10th anniversary issue.

As the issue began to form, we noticed a couple of Top 10s that had to be written and included, such as the first and last -- Top 10 Stories the Last 10 Years and Top 10 Quotes in SB&D the Last 10 Years (The Top 10 Quotes ranking is my favorite. I was the one charged with finding and choosing the 10 most significant, interesting or humorous quotes found in thousands of pages this magazine has put to press over the last 10 years). So Ten Top 10s became 12 Top 10s. Twelve top 10s isn't marketable, so we kept the Ten Top 10s title. Now you know.

Our Top 10s (12) are broken into two groups. The first group is not subjective or arbitrary. We have tracked and published every corporate and industrial deal 200 jobs or more and/or $30 million in investment or more announced in the South for 10 years now. Our count is 5,565 deals in the South that have equaled or surpassed those thresholds since 1993. Based on that data are our rankings of Top 10 Deals, Top 10 Companies, Top 10 Small Markets, Top 10 Mid-Markets, Top-10 Major Markets and Top Mega-markets (there are only seven). Actually, the Top 10 Deals could be considered a subjective read. An 800-employee deal in West Virginia could be argued as more important than a 3,000-employee deal in Atlanta. But we stuck with employment and investment figures regardless of where the deal landed.

Our deal data also contributed to other Top 10s that were more subjective in nature, such as Top 10 Economic Development Groups and Top 10 Economic Development Practitioners. If you were an ED agency or practitioner that turned more deals than your peers, most likely you were cited.

In this section you will read more rankings based on our opinions. Those would be Top 10 Stories, Top 10 Accomplishments, Top 10 Challenges for the Next 10 Years and Top 10 Influential Southerners the Last 10 Years (one tough ranking to produce). But who else better to give an opinion than a Southern economic development magazine that has had its eyes and ears wide-open for 10 years.

Remember, no publication concentrates its efforts on Southern sites and economic development issues exclusively but Southern Business & Development. While Mike Randle is visiting tiny Trenton, Tenn., to get its county exec Ronnie Riley's opinion on things or talking on the phone with developers such as Jack Hutchison (Georgetown, S.C.), Wes Stucky (Ardmore, Okla.), or real estate gurus such as Gary Castle (Orlando Central Park), all of whom have been around so long they have seen it all, as well as governors and leaders of industry in every market size available in the South, other site books are writing about what's happening in Singapore. If I'm convinced I want my next expansion of my business in the South, the world's third-largest economy, I don't know how a deal or real estate issue in Singapore applies.

The information you are about to read should be, if anything, a really good read if you're interested in the economics and a site in the American South. We worked harder than normal on this edition. But we did it in only 45 days. If you believe we missed the boat on any of these rankings, Randle wants to know. You can email him at mike@sb-d.com. He is committed to publishing your comments in the next edition, which will be out in November.