Each season, we hear from a community who recently won a significant project, and how they did it. On this Pick Me! Episode, Kenny McDonald, President & CEO, Columbus Partnership, joins us to talk about landing the biggest investment in Ohio state history: Intel’s $20 billion project in Licking County.
Can you tell us about the project in a nutshell?
The Columbus region is one of the faster-growing parts of the country now and certainly one of the fastest-growing metros in the Midwest. And when we were approached with this project in late May 2021, we knew very little about it and didn’t know who the company was the first few calls. We quickly got going in early June, and the company came to visit a prospective site. By Christmas Eve, we had a deal and announced it in early 2022 in Licking County, Ohio.
Why it’s so important … it’s jobs, it’s investment, it’s technology coming to our region, it brings an entirely new industry to Ohio and to the Columbus market — first fabrication facility in the Midwest ever. And that is an exciting venture. And then it’s obviously a project of national importance that highlights the need for this in a growing country and for us to diversify and make sure that we’re controlling our own supply chains in the U.S. And we’re very happy and proud to be a vehicle to deliver this national project.
In terms of talent and workforce plans, how did you make the case that you’ve got a good pool?
I will start off by saying it’s no easy lift. This is one of the more challenging labor markets in several decades across the world, and we’re a growing market with lots of demands on that workforce and a low unemployment rate. That said, when great companies like Intel consider our market, it’s actually a lot of fun for us to point out where we are in the world. Ohio and the Columbus market are within a couple hundred miles of five or six of the largest engineering schools in the country. Traditionally, we’ve exported a lot of those engineers to the coast and this gives them an opportunity to stay here and work in Ohio. And that includes partners like Carnegie Mellon and Penn State and University of Michigan, Indiana University, Purdue, University of Kentucky, and then all the Ohio schools. You’re right in the middle of all that. That’s a rare thing, especially when you compare that to other Intel sites in Oregon or Arizona where they’re in sort of one market and here you’re in sort of the middle of the eastern half of the country and can access all of that and keep most of that talent in-house. And then it’s a really easy place to recruit to.
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Kenny McDonald [00:00:00]: When it comes to some of these giant projects, it exceeds your capability, it exceeds your knowledge, it forces you to forge new partnerships, and it makes us a better community and makes us a better state once we let go and decide we can’t do it all ourselves.
Amanda Ellis [00:00:24] That’s the voice of Kenny McDonald, President & CEO of the Columbus Partnership. Every season, we hear from a community who recently landed a big economic development win, and today Kenny joins us to share about the biggest investment in Ohio state history – Intel’s $20 billion semiconductor project. Keep listening for tips to drive your community’s next big success. I’m Amanda Ellis, and you’re listening to Inside America’s Best Cities, a podcast for Chamber, economic development and talent attraction professionals. You can learn more about this podcast at LivabilityMedia.com, and with that, let’s jump in…
Amanda [00:01:10]: Kenny, thank you so much for joining us today on Inside America’s Best Cities. We are super excited to hear some more insider info on the Intel project.
Kenny [00:01:20]: Absolutely. Thank you for having us.
Amanda [00:01:21]: To kick off here, I think a lot of people know some high-level details, but can you tell us about the project in a nutshell, what the big highlights are and why it’s such a big deal?
Kenny [00:01:31]: Well, first of all, the Columbus region is one of the faster-growing parts of the country now and certainly one of the fastest-growing metros in the Midwest. And when we were approached with this project in late May of 2021, we knew very little about it and didn’t know who the company was the first few calls, and we quickly got going in early June, and the company came to visit a prospective site and we got rolling. And by Christmas Eve, we had a deal on the Governor’s fireside, I guess, before he opened his presents for Christmas and had a deal done and announced it in early 2022 in Lincoln County, Ohio. And that’s kind of the basic parameters of the timeline. Why it’s so important is, for obvious reasons, it’s jobs, it’s investment, it’s technology coming to our region, but probably some things that are not seen is that it brings an entirely new industry to Ohio and to the Columbus market first fabrication facility in the Midwest ever. And that is an exciting venture. And then it’s obviously a project of national importance that highlights the need for this in a growing country and for us to diversify and make sure that we’re controlling our own supply chains. And we’re very happy and proud to be a vehicle to deliver this national project for the country.
Amanda [00:02:59]: Yeah, it looks like you’ve had at least one presidential visit related to this. That’s really cool.
Kenny [00:03:05]: We have lots of Washington officials and really people from around the world that are having conversations with us about not only how we did the project, but the importance of the projects. We’re in fact, leaving this week to visit Japan and Korea, where some of the supply base is to begin to recruit suppliers to our state and to the Midwest, and we’re proud to do that as well. And so, there’s lots of additional add-ons to this project that are strengthening our efforts and challenging us to keep up with the rapid pace of change.
Amanda [00:03:38]: Yeah, I mean, the Midwest has really been on fire in a lot of different ways lately. I feel like a lot of those midsize cities are really going to be just the ones you keep hearing about that are so huge for talent attraction. So all of this, you know, makes sense. Ramping up those jobs for all those people, right?
Kenny [00:03:53]: Yeah, it’s jobs and investment. I mean maybe even to put a more finer point on it, it’s careers that didn’t exist in our market twelve months ago that are beginning to be hired against here. And that’s in the construction trades to build these very, very sophisticated facilities to install this equipment, which is very complex. And the average wages at the Fab are over $135,000. Many of the construction jobs and supplier jobs are well over $100,000 for people with certificates and two-year degrees and even offering opportunities for those coming straight out of high school, not just engineering degrees. So, we’re excited for all the opportunities it’s creating and ready to get to work on it.
Amanda [00:04:38]: Yeah. Tell our listeners, just for some other background, what is the region that you work? What does it look like?
Kenny [00:04:45]: Central Ohio. We define it as eleven counties surrounding the Columbus, Ohio market. Columbus itself is the 14th largest city in the country. The metro area is the 32nd largest metro area. It’s about 2.3 million people growing very rapidly. We added about 110,000 people in the last five years and are attracting people from not only to serve this industry and this project, but a growing electric vehicle industry. Honda is headquartered here. Some of our largest employers are finance and insurance companies. Nationwide Insurance and JP Morgan Chase and Huntington Bank, and then obviously a growing life sciences and tech community all surrounding one of the larger, more comprehensive research universities in the world, the Ohio State University.
Amanda [00:05:31]: Gotcha. Do you feel like the team working to land this project did anything out of the ordinary that sealed the deal at the end of the day?
Kenny [00:05:38]: Absolutely. I can’t give enough credit to Governor DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Hughstead and their entire cabinet who were very engaged from the very beginning of the project. Our state economic development partners, Jobs Ohio, which is a private entity that does a lot of work across the 88 counties of Ohio and is our everyday partner and obviously Department of Development, which is the cabinet level position, and Director Maholic, they all did terrific work, like they do every day. There were some special partners in this where the Intel facility is going in a community in Lincoln County, Ohio. New Albany, Ohio, which is a planned community. A lot of the fashion industry is located there. Abercrombie & Fitch and a number of Bath & Body Words suppliers are in that community already. So, it had a different industry mix. Just down the street from this facility is Google and AWS and one of Facebook’s largest facilities in the world. And so, the City of New Albany and New Albany Company, which is a real estate partner there that works with the City of New Albany, were really special partners in this unique project that allowed us to move very quickly and to make some decisions on the fly and honestly to make some bets on ourself so that we could deliver the project.
Amanda [00:06:56]: Yeah. I know you don’t always get to have all of these type details, but do you know anything about what other locations they were considering?
Kenny [00:07:03]: Well, they were considering locations all over the country. Intel itself had not built a greenfield location in over 40 years. So their primary facilities here in the United States are Portland, Oregon, Hillsborough, Phoenix, Arizona, Chandler, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Rio Rancho facility. So, this was a new venture for them as they started to look at really the whole country as you know, where are the resources to do this? Where’s the talent? Where do they have the water and the energy to fuel a site like this? And we were very proud to get on that list, along with a long list of other places. I do think that over the course of the summer of ‘21 that list became very narrow very quickly. We know that there was a few other locations. I’m not sure who exactly they were. We were focused on what the client needed and what was a good deal for Ohio and for Intel.
Amanda [00:07:57]: Was there ever a point that you thought you might have lost it, as you were going through this process?
Kenny [00:08:03]: Well, it was very intense, period. I don’t think that we ever said no, but we certainly weren’t able to say yes to all of the demands of the project each and every time we met because there’s enormous energy requirements, there’s enormous utility requirements around this, public utilities, that we had to do a lot of homework on. And so, what we committed to do with the client was, if we can say yes, we’re going to do it right now, and we’ll move forward. Where we can’t say yes, we’re going to figure out a pathway. And that wasn’t always clear, but within a few weeks, we could usually get back to the company and say, “We did our homework, and we think that we can get to you a yes if you can do these things.” And what’s most exciting about that, with most successful projects, I guess this is the case… We developed a real partnership with a company that still exists to this day, where we find solutions together, we move forward together and forge a new path and get to yes, together. Which is the way to build a long-term partnership for a facility that I hope is going to be here for 40 or 50 years producing some of the most advanced chips in the world.
Amanda [00:09:14]: Yeah. And really needed, I gather, to be made here, because that’s something there have been a lot of shortages with during and after the pandemic.
Kenny [00:09:22]: Yeah. I mean, this is an industry that we really started in the world. Intel was at one time the most valuable company in the world, and we think it’s still one of the most valuable companies in the world. But in their heyday, most of those advanced chips were being made in the US. And over time that dwindled down to around 15% of the advanced chips being made in the United States and 85% being made in Asia or elsewhere. And we feel like there’s risk in that. And the Biden Administration and Congress feels the same way, which was the advent of the Chips and Science Act, which we were also deeply engaged in.
Amanda [00:10:04]: Yeah. So from a talent standpoint, I know it’s a lot of jobs, a lot of direct jobs, a lot of indirect jobs, and as you mentioned, hopefully more suppliers will be coming in alongside. In terms of talent and workforce plans, how did you make the case that you’ve got a good pool? What plans are in place to help support all of that?
Kenny [00:10:26]: I will start off by saying that it’s no easy lift. This is one of the more challenging labor markets in several decades across the world, and we’re a growing market with lots of demands on that workforce and a very low unemployment rate. That said, when great companies like Intel consider our market, it’s actually a lot of fun for us to point out where we are in the world. And Ohio and the Columbus market are within a couple hundred miles of five or six of the largest engineering schools in the country. Traditionally, we’ve exported a lot of those engineers to the coast and this gives them an opportunity to stay here and work in Ohio. And that includes partners like Carnegie Mellon and Penn State and University of Michigan, Indiana University, Purdue, University of Kentucky, and then all the Ohio schools. Case Western and University of Cincinnati, Miami of Ohio, in addition to Ohio State. You’re right in the middle of all that. That’s a very rare thing, especially when you compare that to other Intel sites in Oregon or Arizona where they’re in sort of one market and here you’re in sort of the middle of the eastern half of the country and can access all of that and keep most of that talent in-house. And then it’s a really easy place to recruit to.
Amanda [00:11:45]: That makes a lot of sense. Any K through twelve efforts or anything that will relate to this or shift?
Kenny [00:11:52]: Well, I have to applaud Intel for their incredible energy and thoughtfulness when it comes to approaching K-12 and getting very, very involved in our school districts all over the region immediately. And they’ve also done it actually all over Ohio. And they’re getting people excited about their industry, they’re getting kids excited about STEM. You’ll find Intel at a bunch of state fairs with their advanced semiconductor equipment, sort of displaying and bringing kids from all over Ohio and get them excited about these careers early on in their lives. And then I’ll just point to a couple of partnerships that have been created. One is 23 of our community colleges across Ohio, which is a lot of schools with a lot of scale from Cleveland to Cincinnati, are all part of a consortium now to help deliver some of the technical trainers and technical equipment installers that will end up taking many of these jobs. And they’re partnering with those higher education partners, those four-year schools. But those two-year schools are going to be right dead in the center of this strategy to deliver this advanced workforce.
Amanda [00:13:01]: Gotcha. Yeah, I love that. I love the potential, too, of keeping more people growing up in the region.
Kenny [00:13:08]: Well, this is a state of nearly 12 million people. It’s the 7th largest state in the country. It’s a big state, and it’s got a lot of people excited about their future here. And I think as an economic developer, that’s what gets us excited as well, is these are opportunities to not only keep your kids, but you’re in your grandkids and offer them careers where they can stay and build their futures here in Ohio.
Amanda [00:13:31]: What do you think is Ohio’s secret sauce? What makes it special?
Kenny [00:13:36]: You know, when we have big pursuits like this, we put together Team Ohio, and that may be for a battery facility like LG that located just less than an hour from Columbus last year as well, or for any other large pursuits. We have our state, our local, and our utility partners on weekly calls, if not more. We come to those with solutions and with a can-do spirit. And everybody has resources, everybody has locational advantages. We like to think that we’re organized, that we can put those resources to work, and that we bring a business acumen to the conversation so that we can partner with the business, whatever that might be. In this case, we’re talking about Intel so that we forge the partnerships that I spoke of earlier over the long term, and that starts on day one when we’re engaged on a project.
Amanda [00:14:31]: What advice might you have for fellow economic developers or our listeners on working to land projects of this caliber?
Kenny [00:14:40]: I think it’s amazing what you can do when it’s a cause larger than yourself when it comes to some of these giant projects. It exceeds your capability. It exceeds your knowledge. It forces you to forge new partnerships. And we’re probably all control freaks in the economic development business. We’d love to have everything just go exactly the way we planned, but these kinds of things force you to go outside your box and to build those partnerships. And we’ve certainly seen it over the last several years here with some of the giant cloud computing projects, Intel, and the Honda LG project that happened, we’ve been forced to do that more and more. And every time we come up, not only do we win a lot of these, we don’t win them all, but we always end up better so that we can serve normal, everyday business better as well. And I think it makes us a better community and makes us a better State once we let go and decide we can’t do it all ourselves.
Amanda [00:15:39]: Yeah. Before I move into our kind of fun wrap-up question, anything else you’d want to add, Kenny, about Intel?
Kenny [00:15:45]: I think this is just an incredible time for the country. We’re glad to be a vehicle for this project. We’re humbled by it, but it is truly necessary. And we had to bring not only our project expertise to this, but our policy relationships with Washington and across the state to help with Chips and Science Act getting passed, and certainly to do some of the things we had to do with our own legislature to get this done. It’s fun to see it all come together for the work we’ve done, maybe for decades here in the Columbus region, and to see it come through with a win and something that’s internationally notable is great. We take a lot of satisfaction in that.
Amanda [00:16:29]: Yeah, I bet it’s a big deal. I know you said that everything kind of came through on a Christmas Eve, so that was a great Christmas present for everyone. So, we always wrap up Kenny with a fun question, and that is… what is a bucket list item that someone visiting should be sure to do if they’re close by?
Kenny [00:16:47]: Oh, my gosh. You got to go to Jeni’s ice Cream. Best ice cream in the world, it’s all over the city. Go to the home location right here in the Short North. And if you find yourself here on game day, it’s one of the greatest sporting experiences in the world, with over 110,000 Buckeye fans all coming together inside the stadium. Probably double that outside to just revel in what is college football.
Amanda [00:17:12]: Yes. Well, Kenny, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that’ll be a lot of good extra insight for our listeners, and we really appreciate it.
Kenny [00:17:21]: Thank you.
Amanda [00:17:28]: Thanks for listening to the Livability podcast, where we take you inside America’s best cities. At Livability, we highlight the unsung awesomeness of small and mid-sized cities across the country. We also partner with communities to reach their target companies and potential residents through digital content and print magazine programs. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, rate, and review this show wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also learn more about us at livabilitymedia.com. Have an idea for an upcoming episode? Email me at [email protected]. Until next time, from Livability, I’m Amanda Ellis, sharing the stories of America’s most promising places.
