Utah work ethic key for P&G

PRICE — Procter & Gamble had several options for the location of a new paper-manufacturing plant, and Utah's quality work force and government collaboration to land the project nudged Utah ahead of competitor sites, a top P&G official said Wednesday.

Speaking at the Rural Business Conference, David S. Taylor, president of Procter & Gamble's Global Home Care group, also said Utah's location, education system and dedication to understanding the company's needs topped other states' standard one-size-fits-all package to lure the company.

"Utah was not the least-expensive place for us to build, but the spirit of partnership and optimism at every level of government and a grand dedication to economic development and job creation has served the citizens of this state very well, and I'm very convinced we've made the right choice," Taylor told the audience of more than 500 people. The seventh annual conference at the Carbon County Event Center was hosted by U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and the Utah Rural Development Council.

The $300 million P&G plant on a 720-acre site at 5000 N. Iowa String Road near Bear River City in Box Elder County is expected to produce Bounty paper towels and Charmin tissue with a 300-employee work force, starting in 2010. The company announced in October that Utah had landed the plant, which will be the sixth in the company's towel/tissue operations.

Cincinnati-based P&G selected Utah in part because the company needed to better reach consumers west of the Rocky Mountains, and Utah gave it certain distribution efficiencies. Utah also met the company's "complex" technical requirements, and the state offered competitive building and operational elements, plus financial incentives that are important when developing a "greenfield" site, Taylor said.

But those factors alone could not secure the plant for Utah, he said. The state's work-force quality counted for more.

"In the long term, this matters more to me than any other criteria, because we place an emphasis on employee development," Taylor said.

Utah has "a world-class program for training and preparing the work force to enter the manufacturing industry," he added, citing the state's applied technology colleges. The colleges teach skills and use exercises to help people think and solve problems, better enabling them to adapt to help consumers and thereby help the company, he said. "We wanted people who wanted to learn, to evolve and be agile to meet whatever comes at us in the business world."

Utah state and local government entities, he said, also made the company feel welcome and worked to address the company's needs.