Ohio Gov. Bob Taft will be in Boston Thursday to try and lure away more business from the Bay State. From today’s Globe:
Weren’t Gillette Co. and Filene’s enough for Ohio?
Apparently not. Even though Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble Co. and Federated Department Stores just finished gobbling those quintessential Boston firms, Ohio Governor Bob Taft will come to Boston Thursday looking to snag a few more companies — or at least their new or expanded facilities — for his state.
Taft, who hails from Cincinnati, will pay visits to biotechnology firms Genzyme Corp. and Alkermes Inc., as well as CME Energy, which is developing a $1.5 billion energy plant in southeastern Ohio. Massachusetts is the fourth state to which Taft has made recruiting trips in the last year.
What’s our game plan? Do we have any candidates willing to head out to Ohio and snag some of those jobs back? Or even get some new ones?
gary says
The centerpiece for Ohio’s drive to attract business is the Ohio tax reform: an income tax cut; the phase-out of the tangible personal property and corporation franchise taxes; and the addition of a simple low-rate, broad-based Commercial Activity Tax (CAT) on a business’s gross receipts.
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Ohio is targeting biotech and medical science, just like Mass.
shack says
When a group from the Berkshires spoke with nanotechnology promoters in the Albany, NY area in 2003, they told us that we couldn’t even get a foot in the door unless we could find dozens of acres of flat, open land. A company that made medical devices wanted 50 level acres for a business that would create about 100 jobs.
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Ohio has tons of cheap farmland that can be used for industry as easily as soybean or corn subsidies. The whole state is flat as a pancake in fact, and about as interesting.
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(Full disclosure: I am a wolverine by birth.)
charley-on-the-mta says
You’ve clearly never visited my alma mater Oberlin.
cos says
When it comes to where the headquarters of a large department store chain is located, Ohio’s strategy makes sense. When it comes to biotech research, Massachusetts’ strategy needs to be what it has been so far: attract the best people to want to live here. Our biggest advantage: MIT, Harvard, Tufts, BU, Brandeis, Northeastern, Wellesley, … Our biggest disadvantage: how hard it is for those who graduate from our colleges to afford to live here.
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(For one part of the solution, see this post.)
gary says
tommylo says
one of our elected officials out there doing the same thing. We can’t have our guys lying down on the job.
cos says
I remember this from the first couple of times I saw him speak, in early 2005. He specifically talked about the need for a Governor who will go to companies around the country to talk up Massachusetts and tell them about the benefits of locating here.