"Compared to Southern California, you just get more for your buck in Florida," says George Hedlund, company owner.

This year Picker Golf Products is moving its manufacturing from Costa Mesa, Calif., to a new 45,000 square foot facility in Fort Myers. Low land prices, reduced corporate taxes, no personal state income tax and generous cash incentives provided by Lee County tipped to scales for Hedlund to make the decision.

Like other areas in the Sunshine State, Lee County offers the full plate of Florida incentives to attract companies, plus some of its own, such as grants of $2,000 per new employee with a maximum of $200,000 if the wage rate is 115 percent above the average county wage.

Like Picker Golf Products, a variety of industries are finding Lee County attractive these days. Since last summer, the county has attracted 12 new companies to the area.

Sony Electronics, which located a national customer and service product center in Fort Myers in 1996, helped draw the call center industry to the area. As a result, Carnival Airlines located an international reservations center in the area, and PP&G has announced it will open its LYNX Service in Fort Myers. LYNX will handle calls related to national insurance claims for auto glass replacements.

"PP&G had looked at several areas in the North and Southeast regions of the country, but were attracted to Lee County because of our telecommunications links," says Janet Watermeier, executive director of Lee County Economic Development.

Consider these facts: With a Gross State Product of $320 billion, Florida ranks among the world's top 15 market economies. The state is home to 14 deepwater ports, 12 international airports and 13 foreign trade zones. Florida offers the nation's largest supply of multi-use, industrial, R&D and office parks -- 800 locations in total.

With more than 17,000 manufacturing firms, Florida trails only California in aerospace and defense-related businesses. At 6.8 million, Florida's labor force is the fourth largest non-farm labor pool in the nation.

Not only does Florida's low cor-porate taxes provide incentives for growth. Local incentive programs are available to assist companies in setting up shop in Florida.

A tour around some Florida vicinities offers a look of some of the activity that has been occurring.

Its latest big catch is U.S. Airship Leasing, a division of WDL Airships, a German blimp manufacturer. The company is relocating its worldwide headquarters and airship division from Mannheim, Germany, to Ormond Beach where it will construct facilities in three phases.

Phase I, to be under construction in early summer, will entail a 38,200-

square foot hangar for a large blimp; Phase II will accommodate offices and manufacturing in 56,000 square feet, and Phase III will house four smaller blimps in 38,200 square feet.

"We have been working on this deal for two years," said Drew Page, president of Volusia County Business Development Corp.

The company chose Volusia County over sites in Texas, Louisiana and other Florida cities primarily because of the overall incentive package the state and local government were able to put together. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University also played a key role in attracting the company.

Located in Daytona Beach, Embry-Riddle is a renowned university for studies in flight training, air traffic control, airport management, aircraft maintenance, and aeronautics computer design and engineering.

"One of our biggest pluses is our outstanding relationship with the area's institutions of higher education," Page emphasizes. Others include Daytona Beach Community College (which contracts with the state in offering job training programs), Stetson University, University of Central Florida, and Bethune-Cookman College.

Given the area's ties with motorcycle races, the county also is targeting this industry group.

"We are unusual for this niche market in that Daytona Beach is one of two communities in the United States that hosts major motorcycle rallies," he says. "Over 500,000 people come here to attend these events annually."

So far five manufacturers in high performance motorcycle accessories are setting up shop there, including Korbins Pacific Corp., which holds 88 percent of the U.S. and Canadian aftermarket for motorcycle seats.

Companies in the plastic disposable medical products business are also attracted to Volusia County. Dial Medical constructed a 38,000 square foot facility in De Land in 1995 to produce dialysis kits.

Page attributes Volusia County's success in attracting diverse industries to its low business costs. Volusia County's incentive package adds to the equation, particularly when matching monies offered to companies by to the state's Opportunity Fund. This fund is a grant intended to encourage employers to create value-added jobs. Over the past two and one-half years, Volusia County has participated in 47 such grants, which has resulted in the county attracting $90 million in new investment and adding $70 million in payroll to the local economy.

Instead of moving across country, last year the company moved its headquarters across county from Coral Springs to Fort Lauderdale. Plans now call for increasing its employment base by 200 employees.

"We were faced with the decision to relocate to a high tech area because it's difficult to recruit people outside of the Silicon Valley," says James Felcyn, Citrix CFO.

To sway the decision, Broward Economic Development Council City of Fort Lauderdale executives obtained $840,000 in tax incentives for the company. The award is coming via the Florida Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund Program, 20 percent of which will be paid by the county and city.

Alliance Entertainment, the nation's largest full-service music products distributor, relocated from New York to a 240,000 square foot facility in Coral Springs formerly occupied by ABB Power T&D. To seal the deal, the Broward EDC assisted in obtaining a $850,000 transportation grant for ABB Power T&D Co. Inc., which allowed Alliance to move into its building and for ABB to build a new facility. ABB, a manufacturer of electrical relays, systems and substation equipment, was considering relocating to Pennsylvania or North Carolina.

Like much of Florida, Fort Lauderdale also recently attracted back office operations. First Data Merchant Services Corp. was considering moving its Melville, N.Y., operation to Texas, Maryland, or even Palm Beach, but settled on Coral Springs for its credit card processing and merchant services.

"We felt the Coral Springs facility was the best facility and opportunity for business growth," says Elizabeth Ker, company spokesperson.

No doubt $2.6 million in tax incentives through the Florida Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund Program, cash incentives through the county direct cash program, and training incentives through the Broward County training grant program and the Florida Quick Response Training Program helped in the decision.

Prior to the local incentive offerings, Broward was reported at a disadvantage because of established incentive programs in Dade and Palm Beach counties.

The biomedical industry is also on the move in South Florida.

Perrine and Cutler Ridge, just south of Miami, are seeing their share of announcements. Just recently, Swiss Caps USA has located a jell capsule manufacturing plant there along with Health Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of blood analysis and dialysis equipment; Noven, a pharmaceutical company that produces medicines absorbed via a patch, and Pfizer Co., which is manufacturing flee spray for animals.

"These biomedical companies are attracted to our area because of the university support here," says Steven Kranman, executive director to the Perrine Cutler Ridge Council. Other pluses include quality of life, available land, and easy access to Miami International Airport.

The bottom line is synergy, which Florida definitely has.

"The work force turned out to be key," says Andy Bragg, chief financial officer of TCS. "Tampa already had a critical mass of technical labor. In fact, Tampa was attractive enough that we were able to get a core of 200 people to relocate here from Chicago."

For these and additional reasons, Tampa Bay has become a hotbed for companies seeking a location for back office operations, branch offices, division headquarters, manufacturing and assembly plants, and international headquarters.

Not only does the area have more than four million square feet of leasable office space; U.S. Department of Commerce data shows Tampa Bay will be one of the country's 10 fastest growing metropolitan areas into the year 2000. From 1995 to 2005, Tampa Bay is predicted to experience the 15th largest increase in employment in the nation, nearly 338,000 jobs.

So many customer service and support operations have located in Tampa that in January, a Customer Service Academy opened in Hillsborough County. The academy is a coalition of educators and business persons seeking to educate potential employees on data entry, diction and conflict resolution for companies involved in customer support.

"We are seeing a lot of second and third generation call centers being established here," says Stuart Rogel, executive director of the Tampa Bay Partnership. Among them are MCI, which now fields inbound customer service calls for Microsoft's MSN Online.

Long Island-based Haemacure, a manufacturer of sealant for biological tissue, located its new operations in Sarasota.

"It's easy to recruit new employees here," says Marc Paquin, Haemacure president and CEO. "When I mention Sarasota County, people say, 'Where do I sign?'"

Tampa Bay also offers the infrastructure needed to attract distributors. Recently, Wal-Mart located a 830,000 square foot distribution center in Polk County. According to Operations Project Manager William Netemeyer, the retailer's No. 1 criteria was transportation mileage.

"You want the lowest long-term mileage," said Netemeyer. "You also want good interstate access to serve your network of stores."

The company also found upon breaking ground that Florida's sandy soil was another plus. While constructing its center in Winter Haven, Wal-Mart was simultaneously breaking ground on a distribution center in Mississippi where heavy clay soil, combined with rain, created big problems.

"It only took us two weeks longer than scheduled, but it had a definite cost impact," he says.

"We've seen 3 million square feet come on-line in just the past three years," says Jerry Mallot, executive vice president of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.

Among them is a greatly expanded GM parts processing center at 362,000 square feet. Coach Leatherwear, which entered the market with 350,000 square feet, is expanding by another 300,000 square feet. And Pilot Pens, a Japanese company that first opened with 100,000 square feet and is now adding 50,000 square feet for manufacturing and distribution.

Transportation and intermodal connections are key to the area's success.

Besides Jacksonville International Airport, which has plans to undergo its own expansion to develop a new passenger terminal, the Port of Jacksonville (JAXPORT) is the 15th largest in the country. On its drawing board is a 20-year, $560-million expansion plan to create a major ship terminal, renovate and expand existing terminals and deepen the harbor channel to attract new port business and maintain the port's existing business. Jacksonville is also at the intersection of three major railroads.