So just how long does it take to reel two humongous fish, and make it look like just another day on the pond?
Ask South Carolina secretary of commerce Bobby Hitt and economic development teams in both Aiken and Sumter Counties. They’ve pulled it off twice in the last 14 days. And in the case of the Bridgestone Americas’ $900 million giant radial OTR plant project, they had very little time to make it happen.
According to the Scuttlebiz blog by Augusta Chronicle business editor Tim Rausch, South Carolina had about three months to make Project Hercules a reality. Bridgestone apparently contacted state officials in June with a project outline, driven by its past experience with the state. Still, Rausch wrote, Aiken County was no automatic, and it had to beat out other locales in the U.S. and around the world.
"In the economic-development business, a project of this scale to move this quickly is not normal,” according to a county economic development chief quoted by Rausch. No, no it’s not. Unless you’re a serious player like South Carolina.
As you can imagine, the folks at Bridgestone didn’t just dream up the idea; there were months of top-secret meetings and planning before feelers were placed with various government bodies. At the end, Project Hercules remained a tight secret.
Conversely, the cat was let out of the bag on Project Soccer (as the Continental plant project became known) a bit earlier than some people wanted. Conti chairman Elmar Degenhart enthusiastically revealed the plan at the corporation’s annual meeting last April, leaving stateside officials to deal with questions they had few answers to.
Still, CTA courted or was courted by at least five southeastern states, including both Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. According to one report, Louisiana was in serious contention with a location in Alexandria for the project. North Carolina was the other finalist for the plant, though it appears its bid was disjointed and didn’t share universal support within state and local governments.
With the most tire plant experience – it is now home to eight plants – South Carolina came up with the right formula.
* * * * * * * *
The new U.S. tire plant is a nice 140th birthday gift to itself, as Continental AG will celebrate that auspicious anniversary this weekend.
The Hanover, Germany-based company was originally founded on Oct. 8, 1871, specializing only in tires and rubber products. Of course, there were no cars back in those days, but there were lots of bicycles and carts.
According to Conti’s own history, a group of nine Hanover bankers and industrialists founded Continental-Caoutchouc & Gutta-Percha Compagnie as a joint stock company, with capitalization of around 300,000 thalers (about 6.3 million euros in today’s currency value). The first plant in Hanover had an initial workforce of around 200 employees, and produced hot water bottles, toy dolls and rubberized fabrics, as well as solid tires for carriages and bicycles.
Sales in the 1880s amounted to roughly 3.3 million marks, or 21.5 million euros in today’s terms. By comparison, the Conti had worldwide sales of 26 billion euros in 2010.
According to Conti, in 1904 it was the first in the world to develop car tires with tread patterns. It was also first with removable rims for touring cars in 1908 and the first German company to make tubeless tires in 1943.
Conti took its last significant evolutionary turn in the late 1920s, when “major companies” in the German rubber industry merged to form Continental Gummi-Werke AG.
