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Ohio’s lament: ‘NCR didn’t invite us to play’

State, city, county officials say unreturned phone calls and a lone, unproductive meeting led to frustration

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher talks with the media on Tuesday morning, June 2, on downtown Dayton’s Courthouse Plaza about the state’s efforts to communicate with NCR Corp. The company confirmed it will move its corporate headquarters from Dayton to a suburb of Atlanta.

Staff photo by Jim Noelker Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher talks with the media on Tuesday morning, June 2, on downtown Dayton’s Courthouse Plaza about the state’s efforts to communicate with NCR Corp. The company confirmed it will move its corporate headquarters from Dayton to a suburb of Atlanta.

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During his longtime career cutting hair at Schurman’s Barber Service in Oakwood, Mac McCarty was a barber for at least four NCR presidents, and even John Patterson’s nephew, William. Today, the NCR move out of Dayton was a hot topic at the shop. Customer Rob Connelly, an Oakwood native, discusses the topic with McCarty. Connelly, president of Henny Penny in Eaton, said of the NCR presence in Dayton:

Staff photo by Jim Witmer During his longtime career cutting hair at Schurman’s Barber Service in Oakwood, Mac McCarty was a barber for at least four NCR presidents, and even John Patterson’s nephew, William. Today, the NCR move out of Dayton was a hot topic at the shop. Customer Rob Connelly, an Oakwood native, discusses the topic with McCarty. Connelly, president of Henny Penny in Eaton, said of the NCR presence in Dayton: "I know a lot less NCR employees than I used to."

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By Tom Beyerlein and William Hershey, Staff Writers 11:34 PM Tuesday, June 2, 2009

DAYTON — As NCR Corp. announced its departure from Dayton, elected officials of both political parties said they tried to work with the company but that NCR executives didn’t meet them halfway.

Aside from a Feb. 4 meeting between state and local officials and some NCR execs — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Nuti didn’t attend — the company has frozen out conversation with government leaders in recent times, officials charged. NCR execs never told them about plans to move the corporate headquarters to greater Atlanta, nor give them a chance to compete with incentives.

“Unfortunately, today NCR stands for No opportunity to Compete or Respond,” Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said in Dayton on Tuesday, June 2.

State and local officials said NCR leaders wouldn’t return phone calls or agree to meetings as the officials became increasingly concerned about NCR’s commitment to Dayton.

“It’s hard to get an offer to a CEO who won’t meet with you,” state Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said. “I’ve been trying to do it for nine months.”

Montgomery County Commission President Dan Foley said, “If there’s not two-way communication, then it’s really hard to keep a company in town, and NCR for the past two years just did not communicate with us — period.”

Ohio officials set up a meeting with NCR last December, then had to cancel it.

Fisher said he had to reschedule the meeting to Feb. 4 because he and Gov. Ted Strickland had to meet with the chairman of PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. of Pittsburgh, which was acquiring Cleveland-based National City Corp. as part of the shakeup in the banking industry.

“That was a current crisis so we both felt that it was very important that I be in that meeting,” said Fisher, who then was state development director as well as lieutenant governor.

Fisher and Husted said the February meeting at NCR headquarters left a bitter taste. NCR officials could not be reached for comment about the meeting, which Fisher described as “insulting” and “offensive.”

“It was clearly a meeting in which their only intention was to be able to say they met with us,” Fisher said.

“We offered to come to New York. We offered to meet with them any time and we kept getting pushed off,” Husted said.

Mayor Rhine McLin said those at the meeting determined that further meetings were necessary, but they didn’t take place. “We had to fight our way to the table,” she said. “NCR didn’t invite us to play.”

What local and state officials didn’t know is that NCR was actively negotiating with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and other officials in that state.

“This is what happens when we all work together in the trenches with a ‘can do’ attitude to tell Atlanta’s story and pass economic development legislation to close this deal!” said Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

Wright State University business professor Thomas Traynor said NCR’s commitment to its Dayton headquarters has been waning since 1991. AT&T spun off the company in 1996.

“The disaster that followed (the AT&T purchase) really shrunk the presence in Dayton quite a bit,” and after that, most of the company’s growth occurred outside of Dayton, which “just seemed to be less and less important to them as a location.”

Nuti became chief executive of NCR in 2005.

Traynor said Nuti “never took to Dayton. (NCR) wanted him to move here and he basically refused.” Eventually, most top managers joined Nuti in New York.

“When he didn’t make the commitment to move here, you knew something was awry,” said state Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton. “The writing was on the wall.”

Staff Writers Lynn Hulsey, Joanne Huist Smith and Jessica Wehrman contributed to this report.

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