Columbus was profiled in Site Selection magazine as leading the Midwest's economic recovery.

1. A SITE SELECTION INVESTMENT PROFILE:
Columbus, Ohio Region
Driving
Economic Growth
In the Midwest
Photo by David Phalen courtesy of Experience Columbus
Columbus is changing from a steady performer to one
of the country’s most dynamic metro areas.
T
The Columbus Region has been called The new Main Street bridge over the Scioto
b y R O N S TA R N E R River frames the downtown Columbus skyline.
the test market of the United States
ron.starner@siteselection.com
because of its diverse economic profile —
part university town, a national logistics
hub, a center of retail brands such as the As founder, chairman and president she notes. “Our clients are nationwide, and
Limited Brands and Wendy’s, and the of Oxford Consulting Group Inc. in it can be very expensive to fly out of any
second home of Chase bank, which hap- Columbus, Kerr has seen firsthand the of the airports in our other markets. That
pens to be the region’s largest employer. benefits of a central Ohio location. would result in higher costs to our clients.
On closer inspection the Columbus region “I founded the company in 1998 in We have access to all major markets at a
is all of those things and more, includ- Indianapolis,” Kerr says. “In 2004, we sold reasonable price here in Columbus.”
ing home to Honda of America’s North off a portion of the company and we relo- Kerr says that “it just made sense to ex-
American headquarters and an impressive cated our headquarters to Columbus. We pand in the Columbus area. We completed
list of burgeoning technology businesses. have been here ever since and have estab- our site selection process in April and we
In fact, nearly 190 companies lished a presence in Canada, have identified a site near the downtown
have chosen the Columbus Atlanta and the Bay Area area. We expect to hire 45 new employees
Region to locate and expand of California. We looked at over three years.”
in the past 18 months, totaling all of those as potential sites Oxford, with existing offices in the
over 22,000 jobs announced. for expansion. In fact, when Columbus suburb of Westerville, pro-
When Michelle Kerr we went into this process, vides information-technology consulting
scoured the country for the we were thinking that we services for a variety of clients. “We do IT
best possible expansion loca- would expand outside of supply-chain and business integration con-
tion for her high-tech consult- Columbus.” sulting,” says Kerr. “We connect suppliers
ing firm, she didn’t have to The pull of Ohio, in the with manufacturers and manufacturers
look far. Michelle Kerr, founder, end, was too much to resist. with retailers. We do fulfillment optimi-
She found exactly what she chairman and president, “When we looked at the zation and provide other IT services and
Oxford Consulting Group Inc.
needed in her hometown of centrality of Columbus and support to small to mid-sized businesses in
Columbus, Ohio. the strong access to university talent in the the area.”
Plenty of companies are coming to same 11-county region, we came to the realiza-
conclusion in the Buckeye State’s capital tion that this is the very best location for A Deep Pool of Talent
city. With a central U.S. location and a ro- our business to grow.” Oxford’s business model demands a
bust transportation network serving both Kerr says there’s a lot to like in Colum- constant infusion of talented technical
coasts, Columbus has rapidly moved to the bus. “We have a low cost of living and workers. “We are hiring out of school and
short list of corporate site searches. good Midwestern values and work ethic,” training our own work force,” Kerr says.
20 JULY 2012 S I T E S E L E C T I O N I N V E S T M E N T P R O F I L E : C O L U M B U S , O H I O

2. “We wanted access to a variety of schools. Columbus is “a smart and open
Within two hours are 44 colleges and community,” notes McDonald. “We
universities. Also, the retail presence here are a Midwest city whose best days
in Columbus certainly helps.” are ahead of it, not behind it.”
Photo courtesy of Experience Columbus
Kerr notes that she worked closely with A case in point is Zulily, the
the Columbus Chamber of Commerce online retailer that recently added
on the expansion. “They supported me a new fulfillment center in Obetz.
throughout the entire process,” she says. The daily deal website that offers
“They held our hand through the process products for moms and young chil-
and got us the tax incentives we needed. dren plans to add several hundred
In fact, we received all of our needed jobs in the Columbus region over
permits so quickly, I thought it was a joke, five years.
FedEx and other logistics carriers operate out of
but it was very real.” The company’s site search
Rickenbacker Airport in Columbus, giving many
Kerr adds that “people in Columbus included numerous Midwest and manufacturers in Ohio’s capital region a competitive
truly want to work. They are motivated to Mid-Atlantic locations before the edge on shipping times.
work hard. Their families are important to firm chose Obetz for Zulily’s second
them as well. This is a great place to raise fulfillment center. The other one is based business. We design and build the
a family. People can enjoy the many things in McCarran, Nev. equipment that makes the product our
that Columbus has to offer and they can Zulily CEO Darrell Cavens credited customer makes.”
do it at a reasonable price.” JobsOhio and Columbus2020 with meet- Homsi also likes the fact that, from Co-
Other companies agree. Access to ing all of the company’s expansion needs. lumbus, Autotool can easily reach its many
markets and institutional resources gives customers in Detroit, Ohio, Kentucky,
technology firms and advanced manufac- Competing for Business Tennessee, Alabama and Canada.
turers in the Columbus area a strategic Another example is Autotool Inc., “Manufacturing is moving more toward
advantage, says Kenny McDonald, CEO an automotive industry supplier, which intelligent and lean manufacturing that is
of Columbus 2020, the region’s economic recently decided to double its work force more automated and less labor intensive,”
development organization. and its real estate footprint in the Ohio he adds. “It is now more dependent on
“The costs of doing lean processes and lean
business in Columbus, operation. Manufacturing
Ohio State is a major resource for
and really in all of Ohio,
are so much less than
the rest of the country,”
“
filling our lab with workers.
”
— Jeff Carpenter, vice president, sales and marketing, Food Safety Net Services
will not chase the cheapest
labor but more the skilled
labor. It will need to find
McDonald says. “That is the markets that have the
a big reason why Columbus is a magnet capital region. better educated engineers and those that
for manufacturers, logistics companies, The firm is building a new $5-million, have the more experienced skilled labor.
headquarters and business services, and 80,000-sq.-ft. facility in Plain City and will That is exactly what we have found here in
science and technology firms.” increase its labor force to 70 workers over Columbus.”
three years. That’s also what Food Safety Net Ser-
“The best business advantage of our vices found in Columbus. Jeff Carpenter,
Columbus location is the quality of the vice president of sales and marketing
work force,” says Bassam Homsi, founder for FSNS, says the quality of labor was
and president of Autotool. “Labor costs a driving factor behind the company’s
played a minimal role in our site selection selection of Columbus for its ninth testing
because we hire engineers, so we tend to laboratory.
pay our employees a lot anyway. What we “We do full microbiological testing for
really like here is the fact that the commu- the egg industry,” says Carpenter. “Ohio is
nity supports technology businesses like the second or third largest egg-laying hen
ours. The innovation process is supported cluster in the U.S., and this is a natural
here by Tech Columbus and other groups choice for our operation.”
from the technical side. Having that com- The San Antonio-based company
munity support has been very helpful.” will employ 40 to 60 workers in the new
Homsi notes that Autotool looked at 12,400-sq.-ft. lab on Fisher Road on the
other markets. “We looked around Bir- west side of Columbus. The $1.2-million
mingham, Ala., because we have served facility is set to open on Nov. 1.
Honda for many years,” he says. “But we “We are able to hit six different states
Autotool Inc. is an automotive manufacturing
supplier that is doubling its work force and its know that we can find skilled engineers with courier vehicles from Columbus,”
total facility footprint in Columbus. for our operation here. We are a project- Carpenter says. SITE
This investment profile was prepared under the auspices of Columbus2020. For more information, contact Wendy Worth at 614-225-6941
or by email at ww@columbusregion.com. On the web, go to www.columbusregion.com.
Write in #243 for free info. S I T E S E L E C T I O N I N V E S T M E N T P R O F I L E : C O L U M B U S , O H I O JULY 2012 21