Jeb Conrad

Economic development expert

"We succeeded with a deal earlier this year (2007), bringing 200 new jobs in life science manufacturing from California in. And just to give you an example, that company expected probably 40 of those 212 employees under the leadership strategy would have to move to Indianapolis if they wanted to be involved with that company. And most of them are coming. The surprising part about that was that we were able to make a presentation to them on their home turf in California to talk to the employees about what our housing costs are, what our emerging cultural amenities are, accessibility to the world, both with, for example, the new airport as well as if you are into professional sports. Those are available, those kind of things. And we saw a huge increase in what they anticipated as people who were going to relocate as part of this deal. Now, it hasn’t all been put together yet; it will be in the first half of next year (2008), but we believe that the number increased from 35 to 40 relocaters to probably about 100. And so it’s still creating 100 new jobs for Hoosiers, but also bringing in a new group of intellectual-capital people and potential strategic partners, if you will, on the intellectual-capital side into our marketplace that we have not had before, their experience and knowledge."