HERB HUNTER: Honda - sold by a group of smiling faces

We certainly live in an amazing age. With computer technology and Internet access, hometown news is never more than a click away.

During my conference in Orlando last month, I kept up with local news by logging onto www.greensburgdailynews.com at the complimentary cyber cafe the computer vendors had set up in a corner of the Coronado Springs Resort Convention Center.

On a Thursday morning, over a delicious cup of complimentary coffee, I started my day viewing the home page of the web site. The computer screen was filled with a digital image of two to three hundred people, my parents, Bill and Marge Hunter among them, clad in red t-shirts forming the corporate logo for Honda.

“Well, that looks stupid!” was my immediate comment to a friend sitting next to me.

“What is that supposed to be, anyway?” was her response.

“I think it’s supposed to be the Honda logo,” I said, “as if a stunt like that is going to impress anyone, let alone attract business!”

I logged off and returned to a morning of less than fascinating lecture presentations.

On the other side of the world, someone else was logging onto the Internet, perhaps on the same website I had mocked earlier, perhaps at the same time. Rather than laughing at the curious site of several hundred Greensburg residents forming a strange shape in the ninety-degree weather on our courthouse lawn, he downloaded the image and printed the photo. His reaction was, apparently, quite different from my own.

In his interview with Jim Cummings last week, Koichi Kondo, President and CEO of American Honda, shared that Takeo Fukui, President and CEO of Honda Worldwide, had printed the picture from his computer following a stockholder’s meeting with nearly twenty board members in Japan. He indicated the photo, showing solidarity and support of Honda, moved Fukui. Apparently, the image made a great impression on Honda’s CEO, as decisions were being finalized.

I have been as overwhelmed by the news of Honda’s decision to build an assembly plant in Greensburg as anyone, and we will not know the enormity of this decision for years to come. This is what every politician promises, and every community desires. High paying jobs in a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, employing from fifteen hundred to two thousand people initially, with the possibility of plant expansion and more employment opportunities in a few years. In an era where communities find themselves sadly vying for prison construction projects, new strip malls, or an additional fast food restaurant as readily, and sometimes only, available means of economic growth or development, we’ve figuratively landed the “Moby Dick” of economic development fish. We will soon have an automobile assembly plant that will provide economic growth for Greensburg, our immediate surrounding communities, and in the end, quite possibly, the entire Midwest region.

Perhaps Honda took note of the teamwork shown by everyone involved in this process, an effort that transcended political parties. My Thursday Daily News opinion page neighbor, Nathan Harter, has noted several times that, on a local level, there is very little difference between political parties. While establishing differences is the basis of a two-party political system, the overall goals are usually shared. We’ve been blessed in Decatur County with forward thinking business and community leaders for most of my lifetime. Our community has a long history of working together, with the best interests of Greensburg and Decatur County at heart, and that was certainly evident throughout the efforts to secure the Honda plant. From Governor Mitch Daniels, to our Mayor, Frank Manus, and from the county commissioners to our State Representative, Cleo Duncan, the teamwork crossed political party lines.

Jim Cummings and the Greensburg Daily News urged the community to send a signal to Honda early on, and Jennifer Sturgis and the Chamber of Commerce helped make the signal, in the form of a human logo, a reality. My brother-in-law, Darren Burkhart, missed most of this season’s softball games featuring his daughter, Grace, and my daughter, Clare, due to long hours working on engineering aspects of this project in dutiful silence. In short, it was a true community effort.

Mr. Kondo indicated that the decision to build the assembly plant in Greensburg was made before anyone in Japan saw the human logo on the Internet, and that if they had picked a different site, once the picture had been seen, “That would have been a very big problem.” We may never really know the full impact of that Honda logo, formed by a group of concerned citizens, on our courthouse square.

Businesses locate for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the location is chosen because of tax abatements, and sometimes the site is chosen for lucrative deals with the community. Huge sums of money are spent on economic development plans to lure prospective commerce to an area. Sometimes the geography sells the plan, sometimes a government entity sells the plan, and sometimes an available workforce sells the plan. Sometimes it’s just dumb luck. And sometimes, just sometimes, the plan is sold by a group of smiling faces, forming a corporate logo, warmly welcoming new friends, without saying a word.

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