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Details show how Atlanta took NCR from Dayton

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By Jim Tharpe, Cox News Service Updated 3:22 PM Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The fast-moving, top-secret deal to extract NCR Corp. from its 125-year residency in Dayton and bring the Fortune 500 company to Georgia involved closed-door governor-to-CEO meetings, a new law authorizing millions in tax breaks and matter-of-fact presentations on the attributes of Hope Scholarships.

It coalesced in hundreds of telephone calls, dozens of meetings and at least one five-star dinner and polite business chatter at Atlanta’s Bacchanalia restaurant.

By the time it was done, the state had pulled off — much to the chagrin of Ohio officials — a major coup, luring a global company away from its home base 500 miles to the north and spreading more than 2,100 new jobs from metro Atlanta to Columbus, Ga. The deal will land about 1,250 new jobs (on top of 300 already there) in Duluth, NCR’s new corporate headquarters. Another 870 jobs will be created at an ATM factory in Columbus, Ga.

Deal started with a golf putter

The deal was complicated by the fact that talks to get NCR headquarters here were moving on a separate path from the effort to get the factory in Columbus, Ga.

“You have one team working on global headquarters and one working on a manufacturing facility,” Heidi Green, deputy commissioner for global commerce for the state Department of Economic Development. “Team A and NCR did not necessarily know what Team B was doing. It was a little bit tricky.”

It all started on Aug. 11, 2008, in a 30-minute meeting at the state Capitol between Gov. Sonny Perdue, a middle Georgia farmboy-turned-veterinarian, and Bill Nuti, a high-tech leader and Bronx-born grandson of Italian immigrants. There were a handful of NCR officials on hand as well as a few state development officials, including Green and Mary Douglass, who would later take charge of the project, and Ken Stewart, head of the development office.

Perdue gave Nuti a Georgia-made golf putter with the state logo engraved on it. A few jokes were exchanged.

“It’s a time when the two CEOs are feeling each other out,” Green said. “It was NCR really taking a look at who’s leading this state and trying to determine if they will be a partner with us. And it was the governor taking the opportunity to talk about some of the advantages of Georgia.”

Nuti spelled out his vision of NCR’s future and its need to recruit and retain talented workers. Perdue noted the company already had more than 2,000 employees in metro Atlanta and offered some ideas about how Georgia could help NCR grow that employee base. He talked about the support available through Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Georgia State. He talked about Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and its ability to connect businesses with non-stop flights around the globe.

Nuti said the process began slowly, and one layer built logically on the next.

“It was a process that went on for several months,” Nuti said in an interview. “And every step of the way, we got closer and closer to something that made sense for NCR and made sense for Georgia.”

Chamber's role, airline discounts

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said the initial meeting focused on bringing NCR’s Global Customer Service center, also known as “Phase 1” of the project, to Georgia. That project was announced in the fall of 2008.

“The focus was on the Phase 1 project, but there was also the sense that this is a big company and this relationship could be bigger than this one project,” Brantley said. “There was definitely the sense this could lead to other projects.”

Said Green: “There was always a subtext, that if we could land Phase 1, we could land the headquarters.”

Hans Gant, senior vice president for economic development for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, worked with development officials in Gwinnett and Fayette counties.

“I didn’t know whether the headquarters would ever relocate because of the difficulty of that decision for the company,” Gant said. “I felt good about the supporting operations and felt others would come. But the headquarters was a big decision, and we never took it for granted.”

The chamber took on support roles, working with area banks to provide relocation packages and lining up airlines to offer discounted tickets to NCR workers.

AirTran Airways spokesman Tad Hutcheson said his company jumped on the recruiting wagon with a discount package for NCR employees who will relocate.

“It includes incentives to fly,” he said. “It includes a corporate discount. It has a package for house-hunting and relocation.”

Incentives downplayed

Gant, meanwhile, was lobbying the state Legislature to sanction a much bigger package of incentives. House Bill 438, passed in April, would give NCR nearly $80 million in tax breaks over the next five years.

Nuti downplayed those mega-incentives in the decision to relocate to Georgia.

“It would be incorrect to suggest that $60 million or $90 million or $20 million was the trigger,” Nuti said. “The whole issue is whether we can make it work for the company financially. That was one piece of it.”

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