Hutchinson Technology Inc., which recently built a 150,000 square foot plant in Eau Claire, is currently in the construction phases of its second facility, a 320,000 square foot plant that is scheduled to be completed this October.

"We're looking to employ about 2,500 people in three or four years, and we were looking for a population base that would give us the numbers we were looking for," said Richards. "Second, there needs to be some degree of higher learning available in the community."

Hutchinson manufactures a line of suspension assemblies for disk drives, including 15 product types and 400 variations. The first site employs just under 1000, and will grow to 1,500, while the second will employ 1,000 in about 3 years. Not surprisingly, work force quality and availability were top considerations for Hutchinson while choosing a locale, and Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley was able to deliver.

"We have a fair amount of skilled workers in tool making, engineering, information technology, and computer science, and Eau Claire works out very well in providing the supporting educational institutions for training these types of workers," said Richards.

Local colleges include Chippewa Valley Technical College, University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, and University of Wisconsin Stout in nearby Menomonie. The company has future plans to develop a customized training program, most likely with the technical college.

In addition, Wisconsin just made sound, economic sense.

"Another factor we considered is a favorable business climate: corporate sales tax, property tax, environmental policies and regulations, and employment laws," said Richards. "Some of the other areas we considered were Rochester and St. Cloud, Minn., and the deciding factor was that there was a slightly better business climate in Wisconsin than in Minnesota."

Favorable business tax policies in Wisconsin include property tax exemptions for manufacturing machinery and equipment, inventories, and pollution control equipment. Tax credits are also available for energy used in manufacturing and research and development.

One of the region's largest expansions last year occurred when Dunsirn Industries nearly doubled in size by constructing a $7 million, 156,000 square foot facility, which will initially produce 50 new jobs when it opens this summer. Dunsirn provides slitting, rewinding and distributing services to paper mills and other customers.

The Fox River Valley tries not only to recruit companies that compliment or serve their existing base of paper manufacturing, but also those companies that can make use of the area's highly educated work force, such as those that provide administrative services, data processing, telemarketing, and customer service.

One such example is MATRIXX Marketing, which chose to remain in The Fox Cities area for its most recent expansion.

MATRIXX has been in the Fox Cities area since 1989, and after having a positive experience in its first facility, will continue to take advantage of the most important Fox Valley resource that made their original operation so successful.

"We need very well-educated individuals for the kinds of services we provide and we've always been able to find those people in this area," said Patty Lillge, Director of Operations for the new Appleton facility. Since last year, MATRIXX has added about 70 new jobs to bring its total employment in the Fox Cities to just over 200, and has plans to further expand later this year.

The new, state-of the-art call center in Appleton will focus on business-to-business sales management via telephone marketing for leading companies who have pre-existing relationships with the businesses or customers being contacted.

"All this requires very high skills, which is why we find the Fox Valley so attractive," said Lillge.

Sheboygan, Wis. was crowned No. 1 out of 301 metro areas in Reader's Digest's 1997 poll to determine "The Best Places to Raise a Family," which evaluated cities on factors such as crime rate, drugs, public schools, health care, environment, and affordablility. Sheboygan was also ranked 36th out of 300 municipalities in Money Magazine's "Best Places to Live" survey. Now that the word has spread about Sheboygan, which lies on the shores of Lake Michigan, about halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay, the city is experiencing a surge of inquiries from outsiders wanting to relocate.

Industry Week ranked Sheboygan fourth in its most current listing of "World Class Manufacturing Communities," which measured 301 metro areas on productivity, specialization in manufacturing, and manufacturing growth. And Sheboygan, along with several other Wisconsin school districts, was given a Gold Medal rating in Expansion Management's Education Quotient annual survey.

Recent developments in Sheboygan include 200 new jobs and a 131,000 square foot addition for J.L. French's auto parts manufacturing plant, and a new company, Watry Industries, which is building a 98,600 square foot plant for metal stampings.

Advantages are especially strong in real estate and utility costs, where land is about 25 to 50 cents on the dollar compared to Chicago, and energy is approximately 30 percent cheaper. The Kenosha area was chosen recently for expansions by two companies headquartered in northern Chicago.

General Binding Corp., currently based in Northbrook, Ill., manufactures a variety of products used by offices and consumers around the world. Currently, 48 states use General Binding laminating for their drivers licenses.

Last year, General Binding decided to specialize the manufacturing operations in their Northbrook location by creating three separate production facilities. One site will be in Buffalo Grove, Ill., not far from Northbrook. The other two, however, will be located in the Kenosha-area town of Pleasant Prairie, Wis.

"We wanted to maintain as much of our work force as we could, so we settled on the Kenosha area, which is not far from Northbrook," said Joseph LaPorte, vice president of corporation relations for General Binding. "There were some benefits in Wisconsin in utility costs, and electricity and real estate taxes are much better in Wisconsin."

Construction on the first facility, a 100,000 square foot plant, is underway and will be used for the manufacture of printed material for customer binding needs. The second facility, a 50,000 square foot plant, will be used for the manufacture of plastics combining an injection molding process to be used in binders. Both sites will be leased.

Rank Video Services of America (RVSA), based in Deerfield, Ill., also chose Pleasant Prairie for a major expansion. Construction was recently completed for a 535,000 square foot manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution center, which will serve as a warehouse and fulfillment center for the packaging of pre-recorded video cassettes. RVSA employs about 2,000 people nationwide and currently employs about 200 in the new facility, which will grow later in the year as the market for home video picks up.

According to Rank Video's Executive Vice President, Lauro Torres, Rank has had a long-standing commitment to the Northern Illinois area, so when the time came to search for a new facility, the general area was a given. But what tipped the scales in favor of Wisconsin was real estate costs.

"The primary reason came down to the cost of land," said Torres. "The developers of the (Pleasant Prairie) corporate park were also the owners of the land, thus we received a better overall package. The only other place under consideration was Libertyville, Ill., which had higher leasing costs. The Wisconsin location also had space adjacent to the park that we could use for a future expansion."

Further west, the Janesville area has been experiencing very positive growth over the past 10 years.