August 22, 2008
Radio address focuses on two months of record-breaking jobs announcements
LANSING - In her weekly radio address, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today said that Michigan's strong business climate and outstanding workforce are continuing to attract the kinds of companies that are helping to diversify our economy and create and retain thousands of new jobs and investments in the state.
"We've now had two months of record-breaking job creation announcements, but that is just a beginning," Granholm said. "I will continue to go anywhere and do anything to bring new jobs like these to communities all across our state."
Earlier this year, changes were made to Michigan business attraction strategies that re-energized the promotion of our state's first-rank workforce, untiring work ethic, and world-class technology assets.
"Our successes are in a broad range of industries and new technology sectors," Granholm said. "Michigan is adding new jobs in alternative energy, including advanced battery and wind turbines, medical equipment manufacturing, testing equipment for aerospace, automotive and industrial applications along with new jobs in transportation logistics, food processing, furniture manufacturing and auto research and development. We topped some pretty impressive places to get these investments and jobs."
The governor's weekly radio address is released each Friday morning and may be heard on broadcast stations across the state. The address is available on the governor's Web site at (
www.michigan.gov/gov
) for download, together with a clip of the quote above. The radio address is also available as a podcast on the Web site, as well as on iTunes and via RSS feed for general distribution to personal MP3 players and home computers. Links to the audio files and text of today's address follows.
Hello, this is Governor Jennifer Granholm.
If you've seen or heard our ads featuring Jeff Daniels, you know that Michigan has great business success stories to share. But here's something more - these ads are generating new jobs for Michigan. Just this week, a New York-based data management company, Business Intelligence Associates, chose Michigan for its newest location, committing $8 million that will create nearly 600 jobs here. They chose Kalamazoo over San Francisco, Seattle, Wheeling, West Virginia, and New York City. In fact, prior to seeing our ads, Michigan wasn't even on their list for consideration. Two months after they called the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, they're on the ground in Michigan and ready to start up operations here.
This great win was one of many against tough competition that we announced this week. Business Intelligence Associates is one of 20 projects that will create almost 9,500 jobs in Michigan in coming years. We topped some pretty impressive places to get these investments and jobs: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, Utah, California, Oregon, and Washington. We beat them all out. We also beat out Ontario, Canada, and Germany for two of these wins. Two of the company expansions we announced this week resulted from my investment missions to Japan and Germany - Aisin Technical Center in Plymouth Township and Eberspaecher North America in Brighton.
In the alternative energy tech sector, Genzink is investing in Holland, and Danotek Motion Technologies is setting up shop in Plymouth Township, both growing to meet the needs of the wind turbine market. Another high tech company, LeanLogistics, is growing by leaps and bounds as sales of its supply chain software and services increase. It‘s expected to add more than 1,140 jobs with its expansion at a new location in Zeeland, Michigan.
And thanks to our tax incentives, defense contractors Precision Aerospace and Wolverine World Wide, both located in the Grand Rapids area, are able to lower their costs for the Pentagon even as they create hundreds of new jobs in Michigan.
Our successes are in a broad range of industries and new technology sectors. Michigan is adding new jobs in alternative energy, including advanced battery and wind turbines, medical equipment manufacturing, testing equipment for aerospace, automotive and industrial applications. We're also adding a large call center, along with new jobs in transportation logistics, food processing, furniture manufacturing, and auto research and development.
Earlier this year, we made changes to our business attraction strategies and re-energized our promotion of Michigan's first-rank workforce, our untiring work ethic, and our world-class technology assets. So we've now had two months of record-breaking job-creation announcements, but that is just a beginning. I will continue to go anywhere and do anything to bring new jobs like these to communities all across our state.
Thank you for listening.
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