Textron Gone

Shock! Gasp! What will we do?

It should not be a surprise by now to anyone that Textron's noble experiment in the Delta has gone pfft! Many of us saw that from the beginning. There were several reasons for the failure, let's explore some:

The company was in trouble to start
The only way Greenville was able to attract Textron was to offer "freebies" and the lure of cheap labor. On its way to Mexico is a phrase I used way back when. The company gambled on giving up expensive union labor that was trained for the cheap untrained labor that it hoped it could train. The company lost. A term I heard used around town was "untrainable."

The city has nothing to offer
To attract a quality company and be able to sustain growth, a city needs adequate resources. Vacant industrial buildings are not the most appealing resource. One of the most important resources to a company in choosing a site to locate is the available labor resource. Nothing like that exists in Greenville. High unemployment numbers do not mean that there is an adequate resource available. Companies look for an educated work force with a strong work ethic. Both qualities are lacking in Greenville.

Additionally, when looking at site location, a city's infrastructure, education system and medical facilities are important considerations. Most of a company's management team will be relocating. The image that Greenville portrays in all these categories is dismal. Transportation is another factor. The highway system, the rail system, the air transportation system are all woefully lacking. In short, the city is not appealing. Add to that the physical appearance of the city, including the downtown and highway frontage, not to mention the brown water, and your marketability rates an "F".

I know the bloggers on this site will have comments and we can all discuss the negatives among ourselves. What really needs to happen, though, is for the city's leadership (if there is one) to do some soul searching and make changes that will not give Greenville growth, the time for "happy talk" is over, but Greenville needs a survival plan. Desperate times require desperate measures, these are desperate times.

More later