”Each second, hour, day that goes by brings you closer to the marked day. No real pressure here. If the expansion is successful, you’re a hero. If not, well, let’s not consider that possibility.

You’ve got a couple of choices. You can beg your boss for more time, which may or may not go over well. Or you can get to work and present a top-notch report. One of your first courses of action? That’s easy. Contact the economic development department of the utility in the locale in which your company is interested in. It’s a logical first step to success.

Utilize all your options
Utilities have a long history of helping companies to expand or relocate. And like today’s businesses, utilities are adapting and changing as the business world changes.

The range of services offered by utilities to commercial and industrial users has grown significantly. While the utility’s core importance to its customer will remain providing power, it doesn’t stop there.

So why should you involve a utility in your site search? Remember that deadline? The utility can help you meet it, and make it as palinless as possible.

It’s all about relationships
If your parents ever moved to a new town while you were growing up, you know what it’s like to be the new kid in the classroom. The first few weeks, or longer, were rough until you made some friends.

The utility in a particular area can help put you in touch with the people you need to talk to in order to set up business there. In other words, they can help you make friends.

“We know who to contact because of our broad-based approach,” said Diane Thalman, manager, business development, with Northern Indiana Public Service Co. “We really take the role of mediator. We can arrange to get a bunch of people together at one time or to set up times for companies to meet individually with the local economic developers.”

Most utilities operate as part of a team in a geographic region. They work with the agencies at the city, county and state level in a given area.

“When we come into contact with a company, we log it in as an active project,” said Fred Gassaway, vice president with Palmetto Economic Development Corp., which represents 20 different electric cooperatives in South Carolina. “We determine if the company is at the stage to arrange a visit, and at that point we are part of a team.”

Palmetto will contact the South Carolina Department of Commerce and get people involved at the state level.

“The (South Carolina) Department of Commerce is the quarterback of the team,” said Gassaway. “We understand that we have a role to play.”

Some utilities even set up an itinerary and handle all the logistics of a site visit. That leaves you to concentrate on evaluating locations, not worrying about how to get from here to there.

“We can schedule the trip for them when they want to physically view the site,” said Dennis Chastain, director of economic development for Oglethorpe Power in Georgia. “We take care of the itinerary, transportation, etc.”

Looking for the long-term commitment
Utilities have a very real interest in the profitability of your company. They want your company to keep manufacturing widgets — or whatever it is you do — and to make money as well.

They want you to keep providing jobs and using power in their service area. It really is a win-win situation.

“Investor-owned utilities are businesses too,” said Christopher Wood, manager of economic development with New York State Electric & Gas. “We understand the need of the customer to be profitable.

“We don’t want to build infrastructure in an area and then see that company disappear a few years later. We can’t pick up and relocate, we’re committed to this area for the long haul.”

Utilities will work with companies to save money in a variety of areas, not just in the cost of power. Many utilities can help companies reduce their taxes, or work with state regulators to lessen the impact of red tape.

New York State Electric even works with companies to transfer manufacturing processes between firms in separate industries.

“Some of our customers will come to us with questions on how to do something a little bit better,” said Wood. “We may be able to put them in contact with a company in another industry that can help them out. Of course, this doesn’t involve proprietary information but we do facilitate technology transfer.”

Palmetto will even go so far as to show a company sites outside of its own service area, if that site best fits the company’s needs.

“It’s in our interests to show sites outside our service area,” said Gassaway. “We are focused on increasing the wealth of our customers in the state. Even if a company locates outside our service area, that can have a positive impact on people within our area.”

Crossing state lines
Many utilities have service areas that encompass more than one state. These multi-state utilities give companies the added advantage of one point of contact for multiple levels of bureaucracy.

Instead of making inquiries to every state regarding taxes, work force and incentives, a multi-state utility can lay out the business situation in each state in its coverage area. That saves you time, and the utility won’t be pushing you toward one state over another.

Single-state utilities also offer great resources for your project, but a multi-state utility can give you the lowdown on more states, if that’s what you’re after.

Get answers now
With a little help from technology, utilities can now respond rapidly to inquiries from prospective companies. The faster your company can receive information, the sooner you can make a final decision and get the facility up and running.

“It’s becoming more of an expectation that we can respond quickly and completely,” said Chris Pieri, manager, business development with NIPSCO. “With the use of our Web site, we can literally respond to people within a couple of minutes.”

The Internet, more than anything else, has allowed utilities to share information with expanding companies in a timely manner. Many utilities’ web sites feature databases of available sites, complete with photos and floor plans.

In addition, utilities can provide information about an area’s economy, from work force availability to adult education levels to other companies in the area in similar industries.

GPU Energy, which serves parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has a database called GPUSITES. Companies can quickly find facilities that meet their criteria from the 1,500 sites featured.

Oglethorpe Power includes some special services for companies looking to expand in the utility’s service area.

“We have engineers who can come up with a drawing for the company to show them how a building will fit and look on a particular site,” said Oglethorpe’s Chastain. “We can also put that, and other information, on a password-protected area of our Web site where only the company can look at it.”

Shhhh! Expansion in the works
When you deal with a utility on a site location project, one of the biggest advantages is the utility’s experience. If you aren’t ready to have your expansion plans blared to the public, utilities can keep a secret.

Utilities will work with you on your time schedule. More than likely, the utility you’re dealing with has worked on plenty of deals and knows how to keep negotiations close to the vest.

You don’t want to be blind-sided with a call from a reporter asking what you have in mind for your new facility in a given area, when you haven’t yet made your final decision.

Of course, if it’s to your advantage to let the public know that your company is considering a specific city or region, the utility can help put you in touch with the right people. The point is, the timing of the release of information is up to you, as it should be.

Municipal utilities march to their own drums
Some cities and regions have their own, public-owned utility. These “munis” or cooperatives have their own advantages.

The city of Redding, in northern California, recently constructed a new power generating facility. The new plant ensures that businesses in Redding will have reliable power service.

“That’s a very key issue when we sit down to talk to people,” Patrick Keener, assistant director of the Redding Electric Utility, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

A level of sophistication to match your company
It doesn’t matter if 50 or 5,000 people work for your firm, you can get help from a utility in your next site search. Utilities have the resources and technical savvy to deal with site consultants or the real estate division of a large company, and the down-to-earth attitude to work with a family-owned operation.

“Companies have come to expect a high level of service from us,” said Oglethorpe Power’s Chastain. “We also deal with the smaller companies where maybe the vice president of manufacturing is in charge of a site search, and sometimes they are surprised about what we can provide.”

What utilities generally provide is an overview of a region that includes rural and urban areas, without pushing you toward a specific site.

“Especially with site consultants, they expect that we can respond to any and all problems,” said Pieri of NIPSCO. “There’s an expectation level that we are prepared for.”

If your company wants to talk nitty-gritty details of kilowatt-hours, the utility is glad to help. But even if your only concern centers on finding outlets to power the office computers, a utility can still be useful

“It falls in line that if a company is energy-intensive, then they are sophisticated when it comes to talking about energy and how a site impacts that area,” said Wood of NYSEG. “But for the others, which are 95 percent of the customers, energy is not the driving force behind their location decision.

“With them, the utility company is a resource, another tool for information.”

Give focus to your search
Because utilities can take a broad view of your project, they can give some focus and perspective to your expansion or relocation.

“The first thing we ask companies are the most important factors for the company in its decision,” said Palmetto’s Gassaway. “We try to eliminate everything but the most important items considered in the project.

“For example, a company may be interested in hiring quite a bit of part-time help. If that’s the case, then proximity to a military installation or a college might be best.”

Sometimes a company’s final site decision doesn’t have anything to do with raw data, but rather personal preference.

“Say it’s a company that’s a little smaller, maybe one owner,” said Gassaway. “That person may really want to be able to live near the water. If that’s the most important factor for the person making the decision, then that will guide the project.”

Utilities Stand Ready to Deliver
When you place a call to a utility for information, there’s a good chance the utility has anticipated your every question. At least they’d like to think so.

The preparedness of a utility reflects on the attitude toward business in that particular area. If utility representatives, along with their state and city counterparts, can come right to the table with what you’re looking for, they probably will be able to help you in the future should problems arise.

“We have to do a lot of work on the front end,” said Steve Warren, economic development specialist with Illinois Power. “It used to be a bonus to have prepared data ahead of time, but now it’s really a requirement.”

At Illinois Power, the company has over 300 properties from its service territory in its database. The utility has prepared brochures, complete with aerial photos and site maps, on all of those chunks of real estate. Illinois Power covers much of central and southern Illinois. “Some of the properties are never asked about, but the point is we are prepared when someone calls,” said Warren. “When we talk with a company, or their representative, in a short amount of time we can winnow it down to several properties that fit their needs, and have the information to them by the next day.”

Similar setups to Illinois Power exist at utilities across the country. If you ring one of them for data on that area’s work force or major industries, you shouldn’t have to wait weeks or even days for an answer. The question has probably been asked before, and answered quickly.

“They (companies) are making a very important, costly decision that is going to have a serious long-term effect. We want to help them make the best decision possible,” said Warren.