Friday, Jun 12, 2009

In ways that longtime Akron residents can deeply understand, the decision by NCR Corp. to pull out of Dayton, strikes a devastating psychological blow. The former National Cash Register, under its founder John H. Patterson, was more than a major employer. As with Akron's rubber companies, it represented a way of life.

Patterson himself profoundly influenced the development of the city, pushing to form the Miami Conservancy District after the flood of 1913. He also pushed to apply modern business management to local government. Dayton was the first large city in the nation to adopt the city manager form of government.

Both innovations survive to this day in the city. The company didn't. It is moving its corporate headquarters to Duluth, Ga., near Atlanta. By the 1950s, when I grew up in nearby Oakwood, NCR employed about 20,000 in Dayton. Many referred to the company as ''the cash,'' not just for its registers, but because a job there meant good wages and benefits. Much has changed, but losing the corporate headquarters (and about 1,300 remaining jobs) still carries a lot of emotional baggage.

Akron went through a similar sort of civic anxiety attack — until Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the last of the rubber giants, announced in late 2007 that it would stay in Akron, keeping about 2,900 jobs.One big difference was that Goodyear wanted to stay, while NCR's chairman and CEO, Bill Nuti, didn't. In fact, Nuti, hired by NCR in 2005 from Symbol Technologies, a Long Island maker of bar-code scanners, stayed in New York, eventually bringing top NCR executives to an office in the Big Apple, where they will stay.

NCR already has a presence in the Atlanta area. Goodyear's top executives, meanwhile, live in the Akron area, and consolidation issues were not a factor.

Among those watching the drama unfold at NCR was Jon Husted, a Republican state senator from Kettering, another Dayton suburb. While speaker of the Ohio House, Husted was involved with talks about what it would take to keep Goodyear in Akron. He was also involved with unsuccessful attempts to engage NCR in similar discussions. The interest, he said, was never there.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, then the state's development director, also tried. Keeping home-grown companies is a top priority, Fisher said, and Ohio has been able to keep more companies than it has lost. In the end, the administration offered $31 million tax credits, essentially a blind offer since NCR's Nuti would not meet with Fisher or Husted and executives would not detail their needs. Georgia offered $60 million, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, after years of talks.

Husted also credits Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic for an aggressive approach to the Goodyear issue. Eventually, a $900 million headquarters project took shape, backed with about $200 million in tax incentives, grants and low-interest loans, about half from the city.

If Akron succeeded in keeping Goodyear and Dayton watched as NCR took a divergent path, the stories of the two old-line companies follow a similar arc and point toward similar lessons. While they maintain a powerful hold on the local psyche, both companies had undergone major, technology-driven transformations, greatly reducing their work forces.

NCR's days of making mechanical cash registers are long gone. It is now a leader in ATMs, check-out scanners and check-in kiosks at airports.Goodyear makes tires, but underwent a challenging period with the advent of radial technology. The company's peak employment in Akron was probably around 1919, at around 30,000. In 1946, Goodyear in Akron employed about 23,000, close to NCR's peak.

Husted in seeking to redirect the $31 million in tax credits to companies willing to consolidate their operations in the Dayton area. One of them, he said, might be ''the next thing,'' the company that will take the local economy in a different direction.

There is no question that in cities the size of Dayton and Akron, keeping a Fortune 500 company is a huge priority. It can't be the only priority. For job and income growth, it is best to keep looking for the next thing, or, more accurately, a combination things.

Source : Ohio.com