Workforce, Transportation Grid Keeps Ark-Tex Humming
A superior transportation network, combined with low taxes, a strong workforce and active economic development organizations have long been positives for the 10-county Ark-Tex region. Manufacturing, distribution and logistics, mining, timber and agribusiness are among the drivers of a diversified economy, and the area’s health-care and educational assets are numerous and top quality.
“Our centralized location means that if you do a lot of shipping we can get it anywhere else in the United States about as quickly as any area you can find, and with the two Class I rail lines, the interstates and five U.S. highways that give us access to south Texas and the port at Houston, we have a lot going for us,” says Jerry Sparks, former Director of Economic Development for the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce.
The region’s workforce is also another constant when it comes to business recruitment, retention and expansion.
International Paper Co., which operates between Texarkana and Atlanta, Texas, has an annual payroll of around $70 million in the region.
“The company broke more than 50 of its productivity records in 2007,” Sparks says, “and did it with the smallest workforce they’ve ever had. Our workforce here understands the whole quality ballgame.”
In addition to International Paper, the region is home to the operations of a number of household names including Alcoa, Campbell’s Soup, Ocean Spray, Kimberly-Clark, Sara Lee and Morningstar Foods.
The Ark-Tex communities themselves understand the necessity to work collectively to recruit businesses for local and regional growth.
In New Boston in Bowie County, the city devotes a portion of its sales tax to industry recruitment. That money has allowed the New Boston Special Industrial Development Corp. to offer land, cash and tax-abatement incentives and successfully grow its SIDC Industrial Park just outside city limits, says Deborah Cook, executive director.
One tenant, steel manufacturer Carpco of Texas Inc., expanded its facility and grew its potential for erecting steel to the point where it created a separate company, ADS Erectors LLC, Cook says.
“We have one company at our industrial park that started with six employees and has increased to almost 25 in two years’ time, and they’re in need of more distribution space as we speak,” she says.
Next up for New Boston will be growth at the industrial park, which has 60 more acres available for development, and at the T&P Trailhead Park for tourism, Cook says.
This type of can-do attitude is the typical mindset throughout the Ark-Tex region, and continues to lead to successful development across a wide range of industry and business sectors.
“People pick us rather than us picking them, and that’s because of the way we do economic development,” Sparks says. “By the time they come to us, they’ve gone through and eliminated a majority of communities that might have been able to host them.”
Cross-community partnerships, such as the multi-state Texarkana Regional Initiative, have shown the value of teamwork, he says.
“We have learned the value of playing together with our friends and neighbors,” says Sparks. “We all know that if one grows, the others grow, and it’s an approach that has put us well ahead of a lot of other areas in terms of cooperation and successful recruiting.”
