Large Companies Drawn to Southeast Indiana Business Climate
Published Apr 16, 2007
Old National Bancorp recently constructed a $47 million headquarters building on the riverfront in downtown Evansville.
Of 92 counties, Vanderburgh ranks as Indiana’s third most populous – and it’s one of only three Indiana counties where the smallest businesses are in the distinct minority.
The hub of Southwest Indiana is home to 17 employers with staffs of 1,000 or more. Seven private employers boast payrolls of more than 2,000 workers.
The prowess of large employers like Toyota, Alcoa, T.J. Maxx and GE Plastics is no mystery to banking veteran Robert Jones.
“We have a very stable work force, and a Midwest loyalty exists here that is very beneficial to an employer,” says Jones, CEO of Old National Bancorp, a 1,200-employee firm with $8.3 billion in assets. “Based on work ethic, I think our employees tend to be very committed to their jobs and very committed to their employers. And that’s really a breath of fresh air.”
Growth initiatives gain traction in Southwest Indiana because “there’s a spirit of cooperation between the public and private sector,” Jones says. “And that’s a wonderful platform from which to build, because that doesn’t exist in a lot of markets.”
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development projects employment to grow 10 percent in the state over the next seven years, with Southwest Indiana poised to capture a significant share of those 300,000 additional jobs.
A watershed moment for the region arrived in 1996, when Toyota opened a vehicle assembly plant in Gibson County, just north of Evansville. To date, Toyota has invested $3 billion there and employs nearly 5,000 people with a $200 million annual payroll.
Shoe Carnival will complete new headquarters and distribution facilities in Evansville in 2007, investing $40 million. And Berry Plastics, with nearly 7,000 employees worldwide and $1.3 billion in annual sales, chose to maintain its headquarters in Evansville after its recent acquisition by a pair of private equity firms.
Such decisions are made easier by state and local incentives.
In 2002, Indiana’s legislature eliminated taxes on inventory and gross receipts. The cost of doing business in Indiana is 54 percent cheaper than in Ohio and 77 percent cheaper than in Pennsylvania, according to an Indiana Economic Development Corp. study completed within the past two years.
Doing business in California costs four times as much, the study found.
“We’re a little reticent to talk about the great things going on here,” says Jones, who touts Southwest Indiana as a superlative place to raise families. “I just think we need to be a little more outspoken and promotional about the great things that go on in this region.”
Story by Gary Perilloux
Photo by Brian McCord
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