Washington Revives Program To Lure New Industry Recruiting Efforts Beefed Up In Effort To Regain Lost Ground

The Legislature gave recruiters seeking new industry for Washington state a new tool this year, a sales-tax exemption for manufacturers on purchases and installation costs of machinery and other equipment.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many recruiters and Washington has been losing ground to its more aggressive neighbors in attracting new business.

Now, state officials are juggling funds to get the recruiting efforts back on track.

The state has appointed Dave McCraney, special assistant to Community, Trade and Economic Development Director Mike Fitzgerald, to manage five recruitment specialists and a $700,000 budget aimed at luring high-technology companies to the state.

To come up with money for the revived recruiting team, Fitzgerald’s department eliminated three positions and made other changes in a $2 million-a-year program that assists small manufacturers of value-added forest products.

Washington has continued to win some new industry in recent years, including several high-technology projects in the Vancouver area.

But since the recruitment program was scrapped two years ago because of state budget cuts, 10 big companies that had considered Washington chose sites in Oregon instead.

Those projects involved a total of $8.4 billion in investment and nearly 7,000 jobs, said Bob Levin, president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council in Vancouver.

Other states such as Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska also have increased efforts to lure existing high-tech firms away from Washington, said John Savich, director of trade and economic sectors for the State Department.

“The competition is getting real serious,” Savich said. “This is a way to get back into the game.”

“We’ve stood still,” said Dennis Matson, executive director of the Thurston County Economic Development Council. “We’re not very competitive right now.”

“We’re getting killed,” added John Thoresen, head of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.

In the four years before it was cut, the recruiting program had helped 56 companies invest more than $226 million and generate 3,000 jobs in Washington. In the past two years, about 100 inquiries per month were instead routed to individual economic development councils, ports or trade specialists.

“That’s a major step forward,” Matson said. “Unfortunately, a lot of projects couldn’t wait around.”