An Inside Look at How Mississippi Won Over Yokohama - Tire Review Magazine

An Inside Look at How Mississippi Won Over Yokohama

[Editor’s Note: This story from the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger by Geoff Pender appeared Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (left) and Hikomitsu Noji, Yokohama Tire Corp. president and representative director of Yokohama Rubber Co., signed the documents committing Yokohama to build a truck/bus tire plant in the state. To the immediate left of Noji is Yokohama Tire Corp. CEO Yasushi Tanaka.on April 27. It provides a unique inside look at how state governments move to add new business – and jobs – today. You can see the story in its original format on the Clarion Ledger’s website here.]

Cowboy boots, a quick change of tires, a doctored photo, and knowing how to handle a Japanese business card and put a worried exec’s mind at ease all played a role in Mississippi landing a new Yokohama tire plant.

A very visibly relieved Gov. Phil Bryant and his top economic development director late Friday – after lawmakers passed an incentives package for Yokohama – recounted months of pitches and negotiations that resulted in Clay County beating out 3,000 other sites for the plant, and potentially 2,000 jobs.

Bryant looked about as tired as I’ve ever seen him and admitted he didn’t sleep much Thursday night, with Friday being “like waiting on Christmas morning.” Apparently newspaper leaks about what was supposed to be a top-secret project until Friday didn’t help. Hehe. Mea culpa.

Bryant praised MDA Director Brent Christensen and his team and local Clay County and West Point officials for all their heavy lifting in pitching the “megasite” large industrial park north of town. But with so many areas competing, Bryant and Christensen were also recounting some of the little things they suspect helped lure the company.

The state first learned of a potential Japanese U.S. tire plant expansion back in September. Bryant traveled to Japan to make a pitch for Mississippi to host the 2013 Southeast U.S.-Japan – SEUS – trade association meeting. It will, in Biloxi in November.

Bryant paid a visit to the city of Yokohama, met with the mayor and business execs and heard “the faintest of rumors about a tire plant.” Christensen said Bryant, over 6-feet tall and clad in his signature cowboy boots emblazoned with the seal of the Gre’t State of Miss’ippi, made an obvious impression.

Fast forward: After months of work, Mississippi was in the hunt for the new plant, but only one of many areas Yokohama officials were considering.

Bryant says the exchange of gifts is traditional for Japanese trade meetings.
“I always bring gifts – paid for by private funds,” Bryant said.

He thought back to the attention his boots got, and also to his first trip to Japan, in the 1980s with the Jaycees, when he wore boots, jeans and Ray Bans that got attention. Western wear seemed of interest. So he got four pairs of cowboy boots for Yokohama execs.
“Rather than a bowl or a vase or something – we gave them something they would remember,” Bryant said. The boots were a hit.

Just before the first meeting – most were held at Mississippi State University – Bryant had his folks dash out for a quick tire change. They put Yokohama tires on the vehicles.

“When the chairman came out of the meeting, he stopped and looked, and called all the other executives over, and said, ‘Look, Yokohama tires.’ ” Bryant said.

Japanese business culture is very formal and intricate, Bryant and Christensen said, and after years of dealing with Nissan and Toyota, Mississippi leaders have learned many lessons. Such as how to handle a business card.

“When you exchange business cards, it should be handed so your name is facing them,” Bryant said. “And you never take their business card and just stick it in your pocket. At the meeting, the cards are arranged on the table, in order of people’s authority, the individuals at the table.”

Bryant said that during numerous meetings, MSU’s computer whizzes and university president, local officials and other industry leaders were always at the ready to come answer questions or provide documents. If the Japanese execs had a question about power, for example, a TVA official was quickly summoned.

Bryant said he and Mississippi’s U.S. Senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker – not just their staffers – were available for meetings as needed, something that “believe it or not, is apparently not always the case with some places.”

Meanwhile, Christensen was back-and-forth to Japan, Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere for meetings with the company, and to the Philippines to tour other plants. Christensen joked that he now has his passport number memorized and has seen every airline movie extant.

Bryant said Joe Max Higgins, a Golden Triangle economic development leader, also hit on an idea that made an early impression. In one of the first presentations of satellite images of the Clay County site to Japanese executives, a similar Yokohama plant in the Philippines was overlayed, showing it fit perfectly. It was an “aha” moment, Bryant said, with the executives recognizing their plant immediately.

Bryant said MSU technology and data also helped put Yokohama execs’ minds at ease over a big concern: workforce. Looking at a relatively rural, sparsely populated area, they were concerned about having enough qualified workers for the plant.

But an MSU computer data program that integrates population, education, social and other data helped convince the company the plant will draw qualified workers.

Bryant said Higgins also helped convince them that in Mississippi, workers will readily commute 40 miles or more to work.

But when it came down to the short rows of the short list of sites, Bryant said, company officials noted that the offerings of the finalists were so similar that the decision would be tough.

At one of the final meetings, Bryant said, he noticed the top exec was visibly suffering angst over what could be a career-defining decision. Bryant said he empathized and just made a dead-level offering.

“I said Mr. Chairman, let me make this decision easier for you,” Bryant said. “We will make this work. I promise we will make this work.”

Bryant said he was worried when a later meeting to hear the decision was cancelled because the Yokohama executive got delayed in Dallas. But then, at 11 p.m. on April 10, Bryant got a phone call from him. The conversation went on for nearly 15 minutes before he told Bryant the decision.

“He said, ‘We’ve looked at many different sites. Your incentives package and the other two states are basically the same … We’ve chosen Mississippi. Your team worked harder than anyone else.’”

And, Bryant noted, “He mentioned the Yokohama tires on our vehicles. He did.”

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