Episode 24 | LIVE from the SEDC Annual Conference in Williamsburg | Tess Fay, Tanner Jones, & Jennifer Perryman

Hello SCDC members and welcome to the 2023 annual SCDC conference held here in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia. Hi, I'm Ray Methven with Insightful and the truth is while Matt Matthew weren't looking, I hijacked the podcast again. So you have the next few days with me and with a lineup of guests I'm really excited about. We'll have conversations with community leaders, state leaders, really good vendors we love. So stay tuned and join us. Good questions coming up. Folks, I'm very excited to be joined now by Tess Faye with Global Location Strategies and Tess is the principal and vice president of Location Intelligence. Tess, that's a mouthful, so tell us about that. Yeah, thanks for having me, Ray. This has been a really fun conference and I love seeing so many friends here. But so at GLS we all wear a lot of different hats, but in addition to actively working projects, supporting our corporate clients, I also help to lead a team that's focused on the location intelligence side of what we do. So gathering data, making sure that we are evaluating it in a fair apples to apples way, always trying to push to that next level of how we're evaluating places, what data we should be evaluating and best practices in doing so. And so that is the location intelligence piece of what we're doing in our team supports the rest of the business and the other team units. And I think it's important to you, is I think about that, or at least important to me, that GLS is a purpose-driven organization. We are about 50% comprised of former economic developers that the state and the local level. And it really is, we hold close to our heart, the impact that we have and have the privilege to have on communities in which we work. One of our purposes as an organization is to match companies and communities for mutual long-term prosperity. And so as we're thinking about the work that we do with our corporate clients and then also that the location intelligence team doesn't and gathers. That's really core to everything that we're doing is how we can best leverage data to show communities and the best and most reasonable and realistic light possible and then helping to provide that insight as well to communities to help them be better prepared for the sorts of investment that they're interested in attracting. And Tess, I want to repeat a phrase that you just said because I think that's really important. Mutual shared prosperity or mutual long-term prosperity. That's something, it's not a win-lose situation. Everyone has to win or it's not a win at all. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's the way that we lead our projects. We certainly don't take us scorched earth approach as we navigate the site selection process. At the end of the day, we couldn't do our job well without the communities and the states and the utility companies that we're working with. And so we are very protective of those relationships and want to ensure that the work that we are doing on behalf of our corporate clients are also going to be the best interest of the community where they land. Right, right. We're talking with Tess Faye of Global Location Strategies. Tess, I know you are hot off a presentation. Everyone loved here in attendance, but it's really important and I'd like to ask you if you would share with our podcast listeners a bit about your presentation. Yeah, so a newer products line and something that GLS has been spending a lot of time on recently is what I talked about, the best places for food manufacturing in the US. So at GLS, one of our goals is to be able to offer a product or a service for every location decision out there. We know that's a very ambitious goal, but that's what we're striving to do. So in addition to our corporate site selection work and our technology platforms that are a relatively new product offering from GLS, we now are just about to launch a new service line called GLS Insights. And those are going to be a series of standalone reports that will help corporate location decision makers narrow in on regions that may be most advantageous for their manufacturing facility. So to sort of take it from, we could go anywhere in the US or we could go anywhere within a region and help them narrow down by leveraging site selection methodology to which places in the US they may want to go look for a site. And so what I was able to share with the group here at SEDC were some of the insights of that work that we've been doing and gave a sneak peek of the ranking. So as part of that work, we are ranking all of the metros across the United States for their, how advantageous they would be for food manufacturing. And it's tough to do a national ranking for food manufacturing because so much of that is regionally driven. So we also have broken that down into best places within different regions of South Atlantic, Southwest, Northeast, and so on. And so I had the opportunity to share some of those insights. And one of the first questions I had when we started talking about embarking on this new GLS insights product line is, where should we start in terms of industry? I mean, that the thought is eventually we'll come out with best places for semiconductors and best places for battery manufacturing. But we wanted to start with something that was really hyper relevant to the work that we are seeing done in manufacturing nationwide. And if you look at the data, food manufacturing is a pretty significant chunk of all manufacturing employment in the US. It's also pretty recession proof. And it did very well through COVID. So not only was it a very resilient industry, but also it grew pretty significantly in terms of number of project announcements and as a standalone and then also certainly relative to all of the other manufacturing subsectors that we watch. Now that's not to say that every single subsector of food manufacturing has done well. There have certainly been shifts in where the industry investment is happening. But overall, as I said, this has been a very active industry one that we believe will continue to do well, be recession proof. And that has seen a lot of change. That's why we wanted to start with food manufacturing first. So if I think about some of those trends that I was able to share with the group in my presentation, so some of those subsectors that have thrived. And again, there have been some pretty interesting shifts in the food manufacturing industry. But ready to eat food products have done very well. It's pretty intuitive. We've all been working from home, reaching for a bag of chips or ordering home chef, meal kit. So we don't have to go to the grocery store in the absence of having the restaurant opportunities and the peak of COVID. And then we also have seen a lot of activity in pet food manufacturing, which again, intuitively, it makes sense. So over the COVID period, a lot of people were adopting pets. They were spending more time at home with their pets, more kind of in tune to what their pet ate and the sort of treats that they had. And we also were, as consumers, looking to e-commerce for pet food purchases. And so that really opened up a wider view of products that were available. So that's driven a lot of activity. And then the other trend that I thought was really interesting was looking at the way that the industry has shifted due to the coexistence of automation and skill team in labor. So we've been talking about automation for it seems like forever now in manufacturing, but food manufacturing has been slow, slower to catch up in terms of automating. There still certainly are the big traditional plants that have a whole bunch of lower skilled employees and wages maybe are lower than what most communities might want to recruit, but these newer investments are starting to become much more automated, much higher capital investment, but surprisingly, a similar head count project by project. So while the number of jobs per million dollars invested is decreasing, overall, the job count is still very attractive in 150 jobs per project range. But the jobs are different. They are jobs that are requiring a higher skill set of people. So rather than hiring the people who work on the line, it's hiring people who work on the machines that work on the line. And so in addition to meeting that higher skill set, they also typically come along with higher wages, which are going to be more attractive. We're seeing that trend bear out, but more attractive for communities to want to recruit as the opportunities become available. Right, right. We are talking with Tess Faye, principal and vice president of location intelligence and global location strategies. Tess, any final takeaways or things you see on the horizon to share with our listeners? I think overall, there are so many opportunities out there right now, at least in the manufacturing world. At GLS, we don't anticipate a slowdown of any of that. Certainly, a lot of these are newer industries or newer sub-sectors of industries. And I know that that can make us nervous, and communities nervous, as we look to new technologies with less defined specifications. But tons of opportunities out there in the communities who are really spending time to understand for which projects they may be most successful and to position themselves to have the assets to win those projects. They're going to be the ones who really reap the benefits. Sure. Tess, before you go, let's play a quick round of favorites, OK? All right, I'm ready. All right, Tess, what is your favorite holiday? I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has changed for my family over the past few years. I have a toddler now and he's born two years ago. And since then, we've done Thanksgiving just at home in Greenville rather than traveling. So I've always loved Thanksgiving, time with my family. Now it's time just with my little family unit, which has been really nice. What is your favorite dessert? Oh, I love all sweets. But my husband would tell you that I could eat my weight in ice cream, so that's a good go-to. Any particular flavor? Anything chocolate, like the triple chocolate chocolate everything. Moe the better? Yes, that's right. Got it. What is your favorite movie? My favorite movie. Probably love actually is up there, so I could watch that over and over again. And still love it. How many times have you watched it? Oh my goodness, a lot. Or at least pieces of it a lot when it comes on TV. So it's, yes, I love that movie. All right, Tess, what's your favorite karaoke song? Are you a secret karaoke? I am the furthest from a karaoke or as you could be. But I'm a great singer in the shower and in the car. So big into, you know, Ava Brothers and Fowler Childers and all of that. All right, I'm going to flip on you just a little bit. Tess, what is the worst haircut you have ever made? Oh, worst haircut. I'd say to shift that question a little bit, rather than worst haircut, the worst hairstyle. OK. I have been in a couple of weddings where they did not know what to do with my hair and made it into a whole bunch of tight red lights. So it looks like one of the creepy little girl dolls. Really great look. Pictures to prove it. We have been talking with Tess Fey of Global Location Strategies. Tess, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. We're really appreciate it. Thank you, Ray. Have a good rest of the conference. You as well. Bye. We are back with Tanner Jones. Tanner is with steadfast city and he is the associate director of planning. Congratulations, Tanner. You're an old friend. It's so good to see you. Welcome to the podcast. Awesome. Thank you, Ray. It's great to be here and good to see you and get to catch up. Yeah, it is good to catch up. Tanner, tell our SEDC podcast listeners about steadfast city. Yeah, so steadfast is a pretty young firm. We've been around since about 2019. I joined the team about a year ago now. And we've slowly started to grow a footprint in the Southeast, but historically we've worked more in the Midwest, doing a lot of work in the economic and community development space. We provide a more of a holistic approach to economic development and consulting than a lot of other firms where we obviously do strategic planning and target industry studies and all of the fun planning efforts that go into building up better communities and helping communities market themselves and put themselves in the best position to win projects and grow their economies. But we also provide other services that sometimes accent those efforts. We do grant writing, grant compliance work, grant management for both nonprofits and for profits. Across the country, we also do actual urban planning work in some more urban environments and also in rural areas that are growing and helping communities understand how to grow, helping that we've even helped some utility companies project how they grow and how they prepare for future economic growth. And then we also do traditional incentive work, both some smaller-scale site selection, but a lot of incentive negotiation for developers and folks in the real estate space. We also do new markets, just a little bit of everything. And so it's been fun to learn about each of those arms of our firm and the things that we're doing. And I think because we have that kind of breadth of experience and I'm one of very few members of our team who actually have local economic development experience, we have a lot of people that have worked in other areas and bring a different type of expertise to the team. And that's been super helpful to learn from them, but also it gives us the ability to tackle problems that a lot of people just can't. And that's been fun coming up with new solutions for communities and companies that don't even know they're looking for them sometimes. And so if you have a problem that you're trying to solve and you're not exactly sure how to tackle it, not promising that we have all the answers, but we can definitely put together a team that can support you and help you take that next step. Wow, that's interesting. We are talking with Tanner Jones of Steadfast City. Tanner, as I mentioned and you mentioned, we've known each other for a while. We've known each other when you as you wore a different hat. You've had an interesting career and growth through economic development. For our listeners, what do you see on the horizon over the next 12, 24, 36 months? Yeah, it's, well, it's interesting, especially in the Southeast as we've seen a lot of attention around growth and coming migration. And I'm a data nerd at heart, so forgive me for if I go down that rabbit hole. But I think people are going to continue to see and recognize the trends that the Southeast and the South in general is a place that people want to be. Not just retirees, but everybody, young families. When I worked locally in Baldwin County, we were the fastest growing county in Alabama. And we had a lot of people moving in and they weren't just retirees coming to the beach. I mean, it was, and I'm an example of that too. I wanted to live in a community that was thriving and located in the South. And I think that's, I think that's the thing that I'm hopeful over the next few years at least that the South will get a little bit more comfortable being the place that people want to be. I feel like we tend to, and I'm a child of the South. I've never lived anywhere else, but I think we tend to, not necessarily an economic development, but just the people that we interact with daily tend to think of the poor old South that we've historically not been able to keep up with the Northeast or the Midwest or the West. And obviously, instead fast, we work all across the country, but specifically in this area where I know SCDC focuses I think just operating from a position of not power, but a position of, you know, we're the new kids on the block with where the block that people want to be on. And it can change the mindset a little bit from, you know, we're willing to hand over anything and everything to you to get you to come to our community, to how do we strategically grow and make sure that the opportunities that we're bringing out into our community are actually improving our economy and having a fiscal and economic impact locally that we want in our individual communities. Yeah. Tanner, let me ask you because you and I have seen each other at a number of conferences around. I think you mentioned that this is your first SCDC conference. What are some takeaways from an SCDC first time or point of view? Yeah, it's been great. I mean, like I said, step fast is kind of new to the southeast and the Southern United States. And so it's been a great opportunity for us to get in front of some key folks and this audience meet some new faces and also see old friends like you that have been working in the economic development space for years that I know well. And it's a good aggregate of the kind of key players in the economic development space within the southeast. And I'd say that the group is doing a great job of creating that environment that fosters that network and opportunity for people to come and share. Right, I agree. I agree. It's really good to have you here. We appreciate you being here. Tanner Jones with Steadfast City, all right, Tanner. I have some really important questions. Okay. Tanner, what is your favorite holiday? Favorite holiday. So I feel like Christmas is kind of boring. So I'll go with Labor Day. My birthday is around Labor Day. So I'm sure you don't get that one often, but every once in a while, my birthday will fall on Labor Day. I think it did year before last. And it's nice to get off on your birthday and get the hang out. Yeah, cool. That's nice. What is your favorite dessert? Oh, probably cheesecake. I'd say, you know what, that's interesting. Oh, now, particular cheesecake, any cheesecake, stand of original cheesecake? Yeah, I like, I like, I like flavored cheesecake, you know, but really any kind. If it's chocolate or fruity or what, you know, the cheesecake factory, if I end up in a big city at a conference and there's a cheesecake factory in your box, I'm grabbing a piece to go for sure. What is your favorite movie? Okay, so I'm a huge movie buff. So I've got this one down pat. The social network is my favorite movie. Yeah, Facebook movie. Cool, that's an interesting answer. What is your favorite karaoke song? You are a big karaoke. Oh, you know it. Oh, that's a good one. I don't know that I, I don't spend too much time karaokeing, but, you know, I think, you know, traditional don't stop believing or, you know, some 80s jam is gonna be fun. There you go, that sounds good now. I will finish with a little bit of a twist on our last question. Tanner, what is the worst haircut you've ever had? That is a good question. I've had essentially the same haircut since I was about three, I guess, but I did go through a phase when I was probably 12 or so, where I thought I needed to grow my hair out because that's what everybody else was doing, but my hair was not meant for that. So I'm just happy that I still have a few strands hanging along because they're going by the day. It's painful. Yeah, it's painful, yeah. We have been talking with Tanner Jones of Steadfast City, Tanner. Thank you for stopping by and spending a few minutes with us. It's so good to see you. Great to have you in Williamsburg. Let's do some more. Okay, sounds good. Thanks, Gray. Thank you, bye. All right. Good Tuesday morning, everyone. Welcome back to SCDC 23, the annual conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. We are joined this morning by Jennifer Paramann. Jennifer is with the Savannah Industrial Development Corporation, and Jennifer is the executive director. Good morning, Jennifer, and welcome to SCDC. Good morning, right? It's good to be here. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. It's been a great opportunity for you and I to meet. We've talked on the phone, but now we're getting a chance to sit down with this conference together. I really appreciate the time you've given us. Well, thank you. Like I said, I appreciate being given the opportunity to be here. We'll tell our SCDC members about Savannah, Tennessee. Let's just start there. OK, Savannah, Tennessee is a really small town. We get confused with Savannah, Georgia a lot, but that's OK. So population of about 7,500 in a county, hardened county of about 26,000. So rural, but we have a lot of great things going on there. We have Pickwick Lake and the Pickwick Landing State Park. We have the Shallow National Military Park. Lots of tourism going on, trying to grow some industry there as well. So everything's going good. Good, good. Savannah is, I grew up in Lawrence County, Tennessee, just a couple of counties over. So part of our summer ritual was heading over to Pickwick Lake, eating cat fishing all day and then having cat fish. It was then Bella's boat tell. And Bella says it's not there anymore. But the memories are still there. The memories are there. There's a campground at an RV park there now. So you can still go and enjoy. And if you want catfish, we have several places. You can still get catfish. Hakeys catfish hotel, which has been written up in Southern Living. We have the fish hut right there in town. So lots of places to get catfish. Perfect, perfect. Well, Jennifer, you are brand new in your position with Savannah Industrial Development Corporation. And I was drawn to your story because I think it's one that a lot of SCDC members can relate to. You wear a lot of hats. Let's talk about what a small shop is like for economic development. OK, well, I am a one-man shop. Now I am very blessed to be located in a building with the tourism department and with the Chamber of Commerce. We're all separate entities, but we all work well together. So I can luckily go right down the hall and talk to somebody if I'm having questions about what's going on, but other than that, if it comes to industrial development, it's Jennifer. Good, good. And I know that we've talked about before. You really have tried to build a foundation where you're working with state partners and with others around the state in seeking funding, seeking grants, the different items that you need to make Savannah work. Yes, we work really closely with the state and do grants within site development grants, three-star grants, just different things that we can get to help with the funding to do projects that otherwise we wouldn't be able to do. Give us an example. I know we talked about what some of the funding is working for in a real sense right now with properties you're looking at. OK, so I recently applied for a site development grant with the state of Tennessee to purchase a piece of property for industrial development. And they were able to help me out with $500,000 towards the purchase, which it's a process to apply for that grant, but it is so worth it. And the state is so awesome about helping areas out that need that extra help. Because without that, there's no way I would have had the funding to purchase that property. Right. There's no way. Right. What else would you like our listeners to know about Savannah? Well, we have a lot going on. So if you look at the tourism side, we are doing fishing tournament. So if you like to fish, come on down and join in tournament. And we'll get you some fish in your boat. We are in September. This is something we just started doing last year. It's called Riverfest. We had last year, we had a concert. But this year, we have Jody Messina coming in. And a lot of local bands that are going to play open foreheart, that September, oh goodness, September 9. It'll be downtown. We'll close down the streets. We'll have a nice little festival. So if you want to get some tickets for that, just go on the Savannah Riverfest website. We have music on main every month, which is music concerts right there in our farmers market. Perfect. We just try to keep something going on all the time. And I think that's what keeps a small town living. It keeps it lively. Keeps it coming. Now, Jennifer, is this your first SCDC conference? It is not. It is my third. Oh, good. Yeah, the first one I went to is in Tampa. And then I went to San Antonio last year. But I'm getting a little bit more out there every time. So what brings you back to the conference? There's a lot of good information that I get. And it is directed towards everybody. It's not just directed towards urban areas. You have your rural information as well, which is so important to all of us. You pick your best conferences to go, yeah, can't talk, to go to when your budget is small. And this is one of those that budget for every year. That's great. We feel the same way from a vendor side, a vendor point of view. This is our fifth or sixth, then we love these conferences. I do too. It's a lot of good information. It is. We're talking to Jennifer Paramann with the Savannah Tennessee Industrial Development Corporation. Jennifer, thanks for sharing some time with us on an early on a Tuesday morning, I think we are. I have some really cutting questions for you to close with. OK. Jennifer Paramann, what is your favorite holiday? Oh, goodness. I don't know. If you ask my husband, he goes straight, well, my favorite is Thanksgiving because of food. I mean, really is Thanksgiving or Christmas because that's when all the family seems to get together. Everybody, they usually come to my house, which is stressful at first, but no, it's good. Everybody gets together both of those holidays, and that's what makes them special. Perfect. That's nice. Jennifer, what is your favorite dessert? You know, I had a really good dessert last in the hot. What did you have? I had the Mason Dixon from Sweet T and Barley. Was it good? She's cake and carrot cake. It was way too much, but I ate it all. And, Jennifer, what is your favorite movie? Wizard of Oz. Really? Yes. That's a cool answer. I love the Wizard of Oz. Well, this might be the same thing than what is your favorite karaoke song? I've never sang karaoke. Would you like to start? No. All right, one more question for you, Jennifer. And this is a little bit different, Jennifer. What is the worst haircut you've ever had? Oh my goodness. OK, OK. So in the eighth grade, I thought I wanted a perm. I say a thought, because I look like a poodle. It was not a good look. Are there pictures? In that yearbook, there are. I mean, it was just, no. Folks, we've been talking, Jennifer Paramann, the eighth grade hearbook, perm queen, of Savannah Industrial Development Corporation. Jennifer, good morning again. Thank you for sharing some time with us. Good luck in Savannah. Thank you so much.