Episode 14 | LIVE from the #AmericanSouth Site Selection Summit Day Two | Interviews with Joe Hines, Linda Mosely, and Jim Byard

Welcome to the SEDC Meet the Consultants 2023 coming to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, I'm Ray Methvin and I have happily hijacked the SEDC podcast for the next couple days. We're going to spend a few minutes talking to the different people that make the SEDC such a wonderful organization. Stay tuned, folks. And we're joined by Joe Hines. Joe is the Senior Principal and Director of Economic Development with Timmons Group. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ray. It's a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to be here at this wonderful SEDC Meet the Consultants event. This has been a wonderful event and you've been a great participant in this event. So let's start by telling us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about Timmons. Sure, yeah. My name is Joe Hines. As you mentioned, I'm a Senior Principal. I oversee our Economic Development and Site Selection Practice at Timmons Group. We're about a 900 person firm. We work in all 50 states. We have a technology division that does a lot of geographic information systems work for the last eight agencies and we are involved in a lot of site analysis, site selection studies, trying to identify the sites with the highest probability of success moving forward for our clients. Cool. Cool. Yesterday you were part, you discussed with our attendees here at Meet the Consultants, product development and preparing your community to win. You touched on speed to market and I'd really like for you to share with our listeners some key takeaways for our listeners about how to enhance the quantity and the quality of your sites. Sure, no, thanks, Ray, for that question. You know, it's a very interesting market that we live in today. One thing I will say is that when it comes to site and infrastructure development, there's no state who is too far ahead or no state who is too far behind in this game because a lot of the really good sites and you heard this is a consistent theme throughout the presentations have been consumed. A lot of the available sites are being consumed and now you're having to go out there and either identify new sites or go out there and find sites that have a lot of nuances or hair to developing those sites. And as I say, the smart money has brought up the good dirt. Your smart developers have gone up, gone out and bought the best dirt available and they've already developed either as residential or commercial. So from a local government perspective or regional perspective or state perspective, any of these sites are going to have challenges associated with it. Now within those challenges, you know, when you do have a prospect come to town, we look at it two ways. We look at it pre- prospect planning and post- prospect execution and it's no different than basketball team practicing for the tournament or for a weekend game or same thing with football team during the week getting ready for the Saturday game or the Sunday game. And so what you're doing is scenario analysis, you're understanding your team better than anybody else, you're understanding your product better than anybody else. And then when a legitimate prospect shows up, it's kind of like kick off or tip off. And so at that point, you've got to be making smart decisions throughout the process as well as making decisions that are going to provide a good return on investment that you can publicly justify to your elected officials. And as I have one client telling me, Joe, no deal is better than a bad deal. I need to know the point where my project goes from a good deal to a bad deal because that's the threshold that I can't go beyond as a public official, invested public monies. Huh, interesting. Yeah. So a couple other things that talking about the problem solving aspect of the realities of what we have to deal with today. We're engineers. I'm a professional engineer in multiple states. I'm also have a business degree. So I look at it through a slightly different lens, but there has to be an ROI component, but there's also a cost component about it. And there are three parts to every deal that exists. One is the facility costs. And usually the company knows generally what that's going to cost today, they show up. The other deal is a land transaction cost. And to the private landowner, if it's not a locality owned site, the private landowner has one time opportunity to make money, and that's the day they sell. A locality in the state have an opportunity to make money in perpetuity as long as there's an active project there. As we say, sometimes you're looking for the right fit. Sometimes like a marriage, it works out. Sometimes the debt in the 15 or 20 years and you're moving on to find the next best fit. But there's a whole series of layered in issues that you have to deal with. One, wars and natural disasters don't need permits, but everything else does. So you need to understand the complexity of the permitting environment you're in, the relationships that you have with Corps of Engineers and your state DEQ and historic resource offices, historically called as Chippo offices, state historic preservation offices. But as I say, we're engineers. We put a man on the main. We're soon to put a woman on the main, a fellow NC State alum, because I went to school in NC State. Christina Koch is an astronaut and she just was announced as one of the astronauts to get to the moon. And we're potentially put a personal Mars, whether it's the female or male first remains to be seen. But I know my fellow NC State alum, Christina Koch has basically said she would love to go to Mars and be one of the first Mars missions. Wow. So give us enough time and money. We can do anything in this business. The question and what we do is how much time and how much money. So when you look at these three elements of the transaction that take place, the one that has the biggest unknowns associated with it and the most difficult timeline to quantify is the site and infrastructure development calls and time to do it. When you look at the complexities of the permitting nuances, when you look at what the client needs to build, whether they're going to build a million square footer, which can go in probably a hundred and some odd acre site, or they're going to do a big OEM facility, which would be 20 million square feet, very similar to what Rivian's doing outside of Atlanta, Georgia. You know, you have different geometric two-dimensional, three-dimensional aspects that you have to deal with from an engineering perspective. In addition to the nuances of how do you permit a project, how many wetlands are going to impact, how many streams are going to take out, can you do permit to your responsible mitigation, can you put those in an existing bank that you have, or do you need to go out and create your bank. So those are a lot of the nuances that take place. I was talking with the JLL rep who led Project Scout and came to South Carolina and he made the comment that South Carolina had been eliminated. But what they did was they went out and put together a team of problem solvers and basically they convinced the company that they could solve all their problems and they could do it within the timelines they needed to do it. And I think that's one thing a lot of people underestimate in this business is they just don't show up and basically say it's what you have today. They're saying what can you do and what can you guarantee to everyone because every site, especially when it comes to megasites, are very complex and complicated. Now when the megasite front there are two things to keep in mind. One, sometimes there's a reason why 3,000 acres is available out in the middle of nowhere. So you need to understand the market viability and the two-dimensional, three-dimensional aspects of those sites. But we just wrapped up a megasite study for a client and when you look at the cost of developing a megasite from a state capital perspective and a local capital perspective, they're ranging anywhere from $400 million to $1 billion to a site ready to go. And so when the state's making an investment like that or the locals or regions making an investment like that, you need to understand that okay if somebody needs 500 acres but they want 2,000, you got to basically say okay hey I'm going to make this several hundred million dollar investment. I'll be more than glad to let you have the additional property if you're going to invest additionally. If you're not going to invest additionally, we need to have a conversation about it because I'm putting a taxpayer's money into this site development not just for you to hold it and land bank it and not expand in the future and use the perspective of development. So that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind. And then when I talk about what we do for a living as engineers, markets are constantly changing, but infrastructure and site development basics remain the same. As I say, we're using the same principles today that the Romans used to build the aqueducts and the Egyptians used to build the pyramids. It's just their delivery methods are slightly different than how they did it, but if we do our jobs right, we're doing everything as fundamental building blocks for the future, both for our clients, for our state clients and for the actual prospects themselves. And you look at it in terms of building blocks is how you build out. And if we do strong foundational building blocks from day one, they will hopefully last thousands of years like those Roman aqueducts and Egyptian pyramids have lasted. Wow, we're talking with Joe Hines with Timmons. Joe, what does the next 24 or 36 months look like from your perspective? The prospect activity has been the highest I've ever seen it in my 30 plus year career in this business. And as I mentioned earlier, there's no state that's too far ahead or no state who's too far behind. I think the next 24 or 30 months is going to be identifying where those next sites of house probability are going to be located and then how much it's going to take to get that product ready to go. I mean, several states are going in several hundred million dollars in their site running this programs and they're tagging several hundred million, not seven hundred million, several hundred million towards megasites and then hundreds of millions towards just regular sites. And the one thing to think about the megasites is there's an ecosystem of suppliers that go with megasites. So part of what we just wrapped up, when you looked at where all the megasite announcements had taken place, when you look at where future megasites could be and you do a two hour radius around those, the fabric of the supply network that needs to be filled in and mostly usually long interstates or US highways to supply those major employers, is pretty significant opportunity for everybody involved. Just because you don't have a megasite doesn't mean you're going to lose out, you get a chance to have a lot of bunk singles and doubles and wins and your average supplier probably has a building that can range from 100 to 200 possibly up to 300,000 square feet and a 15 to 25 or 30 acre site should be able to accommodate that. Now we do work with a lot of clients who are looking to develop future industrial parks and the timelines are so long from the time you identify a site, go through a property negotiation and then until you actually get it rezoned and go through these five step process of developing the site, conveniently from five to 15 years and that's if you're politically motivated you can get it closer to five years. If you have an election that changes the approach into locality of the region it can delay it five years for that matter. But you need to have good visionary economic development strategy in place because it needs to transcend elections. Every local government seems to go through a political change every two to four years and just because you're investing taxpayers money it needs to have a very sound strategy moving forward that's justified to everybody who is coming into office and wants to understand what you spent the money on they will 100% agree and it's been an issue that we see both Democrats and Republicans rally around. It's hard to argue against creating wealth, jobs and opportunity within your communities or within your state. Right, right. We've been speaking with Joe Hines, with Timmons Joe. Thank you so much for sharing some insight with us. Thank you for sharing with all of our SEDC listeners and the folks who are here at Meet the Consultants. We appreciate it. Now let me wind up with three or four really, really important questions. Sure. Dogs or cats? Dogs. Bourbon or Scotch? Bourbon. What bourbon do you like? Sandy River Distillery. A fernaman in my hometown just started up his own distillery and Sandy River Distillery. Nice. And Rice, Virginia. And say that one more time. Rice or I.C.E. Virginia. Sandy River Outdoor Adventures. That sounds great. You're a fellow traveler. What is your favorite southern airport? Oh, that's a good question. You stumped me. The one in Tallahassee. Okay. I'm going to flip the question. As a fellow traveler, what is your most dreaded US airport? Orlando Chicago. Got it. Got it. We have been joined by Joe Hines with Timmons. Joe, thanks again for joining us. Really appreciate your insight. Have a great rest of the event and we'll talk soon. Ray, thank you so much for your service to the economic development field and I really appreciate you doing these interviews and you've been fantastic to work with and give yourself a pat on the back for your contributions and successful economic development. Well, thank you, Joe. Talk soon. Sounds good. Thank you. And we're here with Linda Mosley. Linda is the CEO of 365 Degree Total Marketing. Linda, thank you for joining us here at SEDC Podcast. Thank you for the privilege. Yes. You have been such a wonderful sponsor, supporter and part of SEDC and you're here at the Meet the Consultants at the Meet the Consultants conference. Tell us about what the conference has been like for you. Well, first of all, I think SEDC does such a fabulous job of bringing the key people within the 17 states that it represents together to have the opportunity to network and also to learn because it's vital that we learn from these sites consultants and we know exactly what their expectations are, what their needs are, so that all of us, whether we're a vendor or whether we're an actual EDO, can serve these site selectors and get them the information that they need. Absolutely. Linda, tell us a little bit about 365 Degree Total Marketing and yourself. Okay, I'll start with myself. I have a degree in psychology and taught psychology at a college level at Clayton State University in Atlanta, Georgia and one of my thesis was in marketing. So I specifically subliminal marketing, so I slowly but surely got on the other side of psychology and started doing the marketing side and just love taking that board into 365 Degree Total Marketing. We are a full service company. We go five degrees beyond full circle and can really handle anything for businesses from branding their communities, to developing their print material, to developing their digital websites, doing digital marketing, doing drone photography, pretty much anything that our EDOs need and economic development is just a passion for us. We just love going into communities and finding out what their unique attributes are, finding out what they can sell to both site selectors and private businesses and then helping them bring that to life, helping them, you know, sing the song of their dance and being able to help them be successful and that's just a privilege. You know, we've gone into areas that have lost 70% of their jobs overnight and helped them rebrand and help them target in on specific audiences and to me that's one of the reasons God put me here on earth is to be able to take that and be able to just change their energy and change their success level. Tell me what's on the drawing board for 365 Degree Total Marketing in the next 12 months? What's happening? Oh my goodness, we're working on a lot of websites. I think digital marketing people are finally understanding how important that is and how important the search engine optimization, search engine marketing is like you were on the panel with me yesterday, Ray, and we were able to talk about the importance of technology and even utilizing the technology that's available now at its full extent because 70% of the site selectors use your website to get the data and if you're not taking advantage of the technologies that's already there then they're not finding your website. So we're doing a lot of that. People are starting to become aware of how important it is to become one of the first stuff and search opportunities. You know, there's 98,000 searches on Google every second and you've got to be competitive. You've got to and that's what really is on our horizon I think is stressing that wonderful opportunity to do a lot of digital marketing for the economic development organizations but we've also got a lot of branding opportunities that we're doing and that's always fun for me with my marketing psychology. I love studying the colors and you know how the shapes are going to come across and what market they're going after. So it's just a fun business. Love what I do. Let me ask you what has been beyond being a sponsor and exhibitor here. What's been a really interesting takeaway that you've had from the conference over the past couple of days? You know, I always learned so much and one of the things that I've learned at this organization at this event is one of the site selectors mentioned that if the community does not have spec buildings built that you could actually take some of your existing businesses and just brag on them, talk about what size their buildings are, you know, if they have rail or highway access and all of those elements that are important to a site that's coming in and just show the successes of current businesses. And I think when we do websites we tend to have quotes and fun facts about the success of businesses but we've not gone into the details that I think I'll go back and encourage some of my clients to do now and actually talk about the building sizes, the acreage, you know, the amount of utilities they utilize in a certain time period and really put the facts on the website so that the it's not just a warm fuzzy quote that these site selectors are seeing about the communities but they're actually seeing now that business has a similar workforce that we need, it has a similar size building, it has similar rail access or inlamports or whatever the case may be and they can see the successes of other businesses in a very detailed informational way. So that was one fact that I got that I feel like is extremely important. Good to implement. We are talking with Linda Mosley, she's the CEO at 365 degree total marketing. Linda, thank you for spending some time with us today. I have a handful of really important questions for you. Linda, cats are dogs. Definitely dogs. Okay. I have a springer spaniel that's my child. How old is your springer spaniel? She's four. Is that right? Yeah. That's wonderful. Okay, next question, bourbon or scotch? Neither. Both of those are too heavy for me. My husband's a scotch drinker though. Got it. Got it. Your husband and I will get along. There you go. Next question is a fellow traveler. What is your favorite southern airport? I would have to say the Cobb International Airport here in Atlanta. Really? That's an interesting thing. It's easy in and out. Yep. And you don't have to fight all of the traffic that you get into at Hartsville Jackson. The big boy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's flip it for one final question. What is your most dreaded US airport? Probably the security lines at Hartsville Jackson. It's an easy airport. They've designed it well, but usually the security lines are anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. Once you're in, you're in and it's great. It's wonderful. The gate to get in. Exactly. We have had a great conversation with Linda Mosley. Linda, thank you so much for being such an important sponsor here at SEDC. We appreciate it. It's good to see you. Look forward to seeing you again. And for all of our listeners, thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. Have a good day. You too. And we're joined by Jim Beyer. Jim is with Beyer Associates, a strategic development consulting firm. Jim, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ray. I'm glad to be talking to you this today. Folks, I've got to tell you, Jim is a longtime friend. We've known each other in Alabama for quite some time. Jim always impresses me. I'm really happy to spend a few minutes with you and our guests. Well, thank you. I feel the same about you, Ray. Ah, that's nice. Tell me. And tell our listeners, tell us about you and about Beyer Associates. Okay. Perfect. Well, Ray, I am a sometimes jokingly tell people I'm a former. I'm a former mayor of my hometown of Prattville, Alabama, which is a city of about 40,000 right in the center part of Alabama. I was the mayor there for 12 years. I served seven years after that as a cabinet member. For governor Bentley, I ran the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs or a DECA. So I have a unique, I feel like I have a unique perspective coming at economic and community development from the local level and from the statewide level. After I left a DECA, I started my firm Beyer Associates and I do business development, community development, economic development. My elevator pitch that I generally tell folks is that my value add or my superpower is knowing the right people to get to the table to make a project happen. And more importantly, the wrong people or the right people to keep away from the table when you need to make a project happen. So I represent a multitude of clients, cities and counties on the public sector side or do some economic development. I represent some private sector clients in helping make sure that the right folks are at the table to make a deal happen. You know, I find your organization's description includes a key phrase that I think is a missing element from a lot of economic development. Strategic development, the word strategic, talk about that. Well, strategic means in my opinion that you take a breath, you don't just barge in, you take a few minutes and you intentionally think about who should be at the table, who should be making the call, who should be in the room when a client comes, whether it's their first visit or their second visit. I was in a session just a few minutes ago and I heard someone say basically the same thing. The mayor of a community and the county commission chairman of a community are not always the best fit to be in the room at the first moment. It's oftentimes hard for that mayor and I'm speaking as a former mayor or that elected official to hear that or to even understand that. But there's a time and a place for them to be in the room but it's not always at the first visit. So I think strategic is you think about from every angle who should be sitting in that room, who should be introduced, what they should say and not just go into something without a plan. Right. When I try to help my clients with that and sometimes allowing them to step back for a moment and to think is this the way we really want to portray this or how do we want to portray this. That's great advice and it's really important advice for communities as well. Bigger small. Absolutely. We're speaking with Jim Beyer, the Beyer Associates. Jim, you have been a long time member and supporter of SEDC. Tell me why. Well, SEDC is an important networking opportunity for folks in the economic development field and I use the economic development. That's such a broad term economic and community development. I have been here long enough to know that economic development to realize and to understand and to see that economic development has evolved from pure industrial development to now include terms like retail development, hospitality development, service industry development. It's a broad picture and the SEDC is a tool that economic development developers I speak specifically for Alabama because that's where generally the space I play in but all across the south. It's a tool that economic developers can use to network, to learn, to commiserate. Sometimes it's good to be with folks who understand exactly what you're commiserating about. If you've lost a project or you've had something go wonky, which all projects go wonky at some point and that's what that's the SEDC's benefit in my opinion. Now we're here together at the Meet the Consultants conference. Tell me from your perspective what's been a really great takeaway for you. Well, a great takeaway today at this conference, a great takeaway last year when we were in San Antonio and really a great takeaway anytime we gather is that I always leave feeling a little more current. Terms change, ideas change and it's always good to be current. Have that current perspective and perspective changes almost as we know in any line of work, perspective changes daily. So my takeaway is having a current perspective on projects that are happening, on politics that are happening. You know, this conference, the word China has been mentioned a whole bunch. And there are perspectives on how do we engage with China, do we engage with China, do we say no to China? That's a whole big, I mean, that's a big subject, but it's interesting to hear folks perspective, hear others perspective and hopefully be able to guide my clients strategically again on if that were to come up. And so I think just the perspective on the whole gamut of economic development is what I take away the current perspective. We're talking with Jim Byard, Byard Associates. Jim, what's the next 12 or 24 months look like for you? Well, the last 12 or 24 months have been busy and I feel like that the next two years I think we in this world are going to be busy. I think it's changing. I think with coming out of the pandemic and we talk about that, but I think coming out of the pandemic, the workforce habits have changed. I think we in all levels and all manners of work have to figure that out what that looks like, how that looks like. And I think we're all in a in a big, whether we like it or not together learning process. And I think we have to be open and I think we have to have to extend a little grace. I think sometimes I wish you'd repeat that. Well, I'm preaching to myself now, Ray. I think we have to extend grace. I think if everybody would just extend a little grace and be a little open because we in all of our worlds are walking around with folks that are, you know, we're all carrying something and we're all thinking about things and there are a lot of heavy community problems that we're all shouldering together and individually or individually together. So I think extending grace, but I think being busy and just it's such a fascinating time with technology changes, workforce changes, workforce habits changing. It's it is not for the faint of heart and I think successful people will a extend that grace and be a little open minded and not so rigid and we're not going to do this or we're, you know, I think that's important. Great point. No, it is very important. We're talking with Jim by a gym. I want to close with really important questions for you. Really revealing questions. Okay. Question one, dogs or cats? We have dogs. Who we have a dog? What kind of dog? We have a rescue brand new rescue puppy at our house. We've always had doxons, but our daughter who is a junior at Birmingham Southern College in Birmingham right now has just adopted a a shelter dog and he is living with us right now until she gets home with a couple of weeks. Yep. Yep. I hear it. Second question, bourbon or scotch? Oh, I'm a bourbon guy. There you go. What kind of maker smart? I like maker smart. Defended to Vancer. Yep. You're a fellow traveler. So tell me what is your favorite Southern airport? My favorite. So I like Birmingham shuttlesworth airport because it's easy to get in and out of and they have wonderful valet parking. They do and you're right. That is a great area. And they're kind of hometown. I have Montgomery and Birmingham are my hometown airports, but I like Birmingham. Let me flip it for you. Final question. What is your most dreaded US airport? Most dreaded US airport. That's an interesting one. Dallas Fort Worth is just so large. I don't want to offend anybody. But Dallas Fort Worth is a large spot. When you get there, it's a large spot. It is. It is. It's bigger than someone just talked about it a minute ago. It's bigger than several US cities. Right. Yeah. It's a it's a yeah. I don't want to offend any of my Dallas friends. We've been talking with Jim Byard, Byron Associates. Jim, thank you for being a friend. Thanks for being a supporter of the SEDC. Absolutely. And being here and spending a few minutes with us. Appreciate the opportunity. Good. Let's talk for Choc