Next was NCR, which had been based in Dayton for 125 years, announcing in June 2009 that it was moving its corporate headquarters to Duluth. NCR also announced plans to build a manufacturing plant in Columbus, about 100 miles southwest of Atlanta.
And First Data, a Fortune 500 payments processor, began consolidating operations in Georgia’s Cobb County in 2009, moving from Denver.
Of those victories, NCR was the biggest, said Nick Masino, vice president, economic development for the Gwinnett (County) Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re really on a roll, of which NCR was clearly the largest of those moves,” Masino said.
When NCR announced its plans, many in the Dayton area were shocked by the decision even though NCR had been gradually cutting its strings to its hometown. NCR executives, for example, had moved their offices to Manhattan in 2007 and had announced a customer services expansion in Georgia in October 2008.
The state of Georgia then offered NCR (by at least one analyst’s estimate) $80 million in incentives to move the company’s headquarters to the Atlanta area. Ohio tried to counter with a last-minute offer valued at more than $31 million, but it was too little, too late.
During the next year, NCR’s employees gradually moved out of the headquarters building at 1700 S. Patterson Blvd., which NCR eventually sold to the University of Dayton. The building is now home to the UD Research Institute.
Masino said NCR employees and their families are renting and buying homes and getting to know their new communities. He said NCR invited about 350 Dayton employees to Duluth, a number he calls a “consensus” estimate. NCR never said how many employees would be offered transfers.
Todd Cline, editor of the Gwinnett Daily Post, said the county of 800,000 residents feels it has become a prime corporate site-selection candidate. He said chamber officials have been very active, even recently returning from a trip to China. He sees development leaders in the area striving to make Georgia Highway 319 a new “high-tech corridor.”
“It has become kind of a hotbed place,” Cline said.
Charles Bannister, Gwinnet County Commission chairman, is confident NCR “will be a leader” in inspiring other firms to relocate to his county. “I feel quite certain that will happen,” Bannister said.
Malika White, a spokeswoman for the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, wasn’t able to say what kind of impact newly arrived NCR has had yet.
Masino, a Cincinnati-area native who graduated from Sycamore High School in 1989, said that while he celebrates Duluth’s gain, he “hated” the impact the move had on Dayton. But NCR already had longstanding relations with Georgia and Georgia universities, he said.
“It’s not slighting Dayton by any means,” Masino said. “We have the busiest airport in the world.”
Proximity to a major international airport was one of the reasons NCR cited for making the move. The Atlanta area is home to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Back in Dayton, more than half of what had been NCR Corp.’s local work force registered with a Web site to help NCR employees find Dayton-area jobs.
Alex Lashchuk, 33, who worked for NCR’s Gasper division, was one of those who declined an offer to work in Duluth.
“The majority of people I know got offers (for NCR jobs in Georgia),” Lashchuk said. “The majority of people I know rejected them.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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