Boeing and S.C. are a good combination

Economy booster

Boeing announcing it would expand here, other major businesses opting to locate here and Maersk deciding to continue operations at the Port of Charleston all make it clear that the greater Charleston area is a desirable place to do business.

Boeing is the world's largest aircraft manufacturer. Manufacturing creates wealth. Maersk is the world's largest shipping company. Ocean-going trade creates wealth. The more manufacturing and port activity that come to our area the better it will be for all South Carolinians.

North Charleston has what could easily be argued is the best manufacturing site on the East Coast and perhaps one of the best in the world.

The Noisette property is a world-class manufacturing site with immediate port access. Recently initiated bankruptcy proceedings offer an opportunity to re-evaluate that property as a manufacturing hub. That opportunity ought not be missed.

Most modern manufacturing methods and procedures produce very little if any pollution and they provide well-paying jobs.

While the iron is hot, the leaders of North Charleston in conjunction with other political and business leaders could strike yet another major economy boosting deal.

WALTER D. CARR
Carr Properties, LLC
Campbell Street

Hicks reverses course

Columnist Brian Hicks celebrated the arrival of Boeing not long after he had lectured us about how backward, uneducated and non-progressive South Carolinians are.

Now we're going to build the world's finest airplanes right here, and Hicks reveals how Seattle badmouthed us while Boeing was making its decision about where to build another plant. Frankly, the Seattle criticism of our people doesn't hold a candle to what Brian Hicks doles out.

I wonder how the state NAACP is taking the bad news that the Boeing Corporation seems to be light years beyond their Confederate flag boycott.

K.L. SCHAUB
Pierce Street
Daniel Island

Boeing's move

A new Boeing plant is coming to town. Everyone seems to be excited about the move. Not me. I grew up in South Carolina and was recruited to Boeing out of Clemson. I lived in Seattle and its surrounding communities for 38 years. I was a Boeing engineer for six of them. I shall list the ways Boeing was a bad employer and bad neighbor.

Boeing was, as it still is, a boom and bust corporation. There was little stable employment for locals. During booms they recruited worldwide, bringing in droves of outsiders with the special technical skills required. During busts they laid off workers, often requiring the survivors to work as much as 16 hours per week overtime because the modest overtime premium was cheaper than paying benefits.

When they expanded, they never did so in the same place. They went where the land was cheapest. Plants sprawled along 54 miles of the 1-5 corridor from Auburn, Wash., to Everett, Wash. They frequently transferred people along that corridor and there was no compensation for moving expenses.

Fifty-four miles was considered a reasonable commute even though the traffic was usually slowed to a crawl by the glut of Boeing workers commuting in opposite directions. During my tenure at Boeing, I was transferred among four towns, Seattle, Everett, Renton and Kent. I was laid off twice when business slumped.

Boeing finally abandoned Seattle, its place of origin, and moved its corporate headquarters to the Midwest. This left varying reactions -- from shock and abandonment among the sentimentalists to expletives of good riddance from many others.

Now Boeing is going to build a manufacturing plant in Charleston because South Carolina is so business friendly. Indeed South Carolina solicits big corporations to come here with almost a blind religious fervor. We need to be wary of this corporate giant.

JOHNNY DOUGLASS
Portia Street
Edisto Island

Good news

Residents of our region and South Carolina can rightfully be proud of the decision by Boeing Corporation to base a second production line for the 787 Dreamliner here in the Lowcountry. It promises to bring many well-paying jobs to the Charleston area for years to come.

But this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for regional economic development will not be maximized unless civic and educational leaders grasp its significance. They must plan and invest in building the economic and educational infrastructure which can be leveraged so that Boeing is only the first step in creating a high-tech corridor and culture in the Charleston area.

Our educational establishment should be planning to create new IT and technology curricula and programs to train local residents for jobs Boeing and its suppliers will bring here. Local colleges, including Trident Tech, should meet with executives of companies like Boeing and Google to ascertain the skills and competences they will seek in employees so these can be integrated into curricula.

The Charleston County School Board should determine if vo-tech programs can be created to provide entry level skills to local students who choose to enter the workforce rather than pursue higher education. Why not a magnet school for techies like the one we have now for the arts?

Our county governments should investigate tax incentives for high tech and IT companies to encourage them to locate here and to build upon the area's capabilities in technology. The Boeing decision is good news; it will be great news if we see it not as an end but as a significant first step in creating a high-tech job boom for the Lowcountry.

ROBERT BELL
Navigators Run
Mount Pleasant

'Job well done'

The Boeing Company's decision to select North Charleston as the site for a new manufacturing facility is welcome news for the greater Charleston area and South Carolina. It was a team effort that secured the deal with Boeing, the country's largest exporter. But two lynchpins of the effort were Speaker Bobby Harrell and Sen. Glenn McConnell.

As the elected leaders of their respective chambers, Speaker Harrell and Sen. McConnell are responsible for managing the legislative agendas of those bodies. Without their commitment and ability to bring legislators from both parties together, an incentive package might never have been approved. The package they presented was both fair to taxpayers and attractive to Boeing.

Their intricate knowledge of South Carolina and how our government can work for the people of South Carolina is an asset we cannot take for granted. Speaker Harrell and Sen. McConnell deserve thanks for the tremendous leadership they have shown and congratulations on a job well done.

KATON DAWSON
Former Chairman
S.C. Republican Party
Devereaux Road
Columbia

Pursue Southwest

In response to the Oct. 30 headline "Boeing is coming ... Now What?," let's enjoy landing Boeing but not rest on our laurels. We lost AirTran because of a paucity of business travelers. Now is the time for Charleston's airport authority to put financial incentives on the table to go after Southwest, which has a large and convenient nationwide hub at Chicago's Midway Airport.

Southwest has an attractive and affordable business traveler package including reasonable prices, priority seating and ability to change flights without change fees. I anticipate lots of Boeing executives, related suppliers and prospective suppliers traveling non-stop between Chicago and Charleston. Shouldn't they be doing it on Southwest's Boeing 737s rather than on that other non-stop carrier's small, old, non-Boeing planes to Chicago O'Hare?

ED JONES
Wildcat Point
Seabrook Island