Trying to find a new location for your business where the workers are talented and highly skilled? That was Bell Helicopter’s quest back in 1998 when it started to look for a site to build the V-22 Osprey vertical takeoff, tilt rotor aircraft. Bell found what it was looking for in Amarillo, Texas, after sorting through request-for-proposal (RFP) responses from 1,200 communities interested in snaring the project.

“It’s the people you get inside the factory who make a business want to build and then expand at a site,” said Roger Williams, director of administration at Bell’s Amarillo assembly center. “We see the kind of productivity and quality that this work force has already demonstrated on the V-22, and that’s why we’ll have the H-1 modernization project here in the future.”

The H-1 project that Williams is referring to covers refurbishing Marine Huey and Cobra helicopters with new cockpits, engines, transmissions, hub and rotor systems. Bell’s Amarillo work force, currently at 700, is headed for some serious expansion.

“We’ll stay at the current level until 2006 or 2007, and then it will start really ramping up,” Williams said. “We project that by 2012 or 2013, we’ll be at 1,600 with those [H-1 and V-22] programs.”

Many executives wrestling with site selection projects would be thrilled to equal Bell’s triumph in Amarillo, and its success at discovering Amarillo’s highly productive work force.

Expansion Management’s High Value Labor Quotient™, in its second year, is a tool to help you get started on the path to success.

We used a variety of yardsticks as a starting point in developing the 2004 Knowledge Worker Quotient metro rankings.

These yardsticks include science and engineering workers as a percent of the work force in U.S. metros; degree holders (bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D.) as a percent of the work force; and number of patents issued. We added number and type of colleges in each metro to the mix, and we gave extra weight to institutions that offer advanced degrees.

Values from each of the yardsticks were applied to the 331 U.S. metropolitan areas to come up with the overall metro rankings. The top three metro finishers are Boston, Mass.-N.H., Washington, D.C.-Md.-Va.-W.Va., and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.

The top 20 metro areas in this year’s HVLQ ranking are widely dispersed throughout the United States. New Jersey leads the way with four finishers among the top 20 metro areas. California had three finishers among the top 20 metros, while Colorado and Connecticut each claimed two top-20 finishers. (For a list of the top 50 metros, see page 18.)

Comprehensive Training Program Gets Bell Assembly Off the Ground

What prompted Bell to choose Amarillo for its aircraft assembly operations in the first place?

“A major driver for us was the fact that Amarillo College, with the Texas Workforce Commission and Texas Department of Economic Development funding, was able to put together a robust, Bell-specific training program from which we’ve been able to hire really good workers,” Williams said. “See what training programs are in place at a prospective site, including the number of colleges that might offer training."

That includes community colleges, according to Williams, since they can be engines of development for both businesses and individuals.

The number of community colleges in each U.S. metro were included in the HVLQ rankings for one additional, very timely reason: The Bush administration is proposing to spend $250 million to create partnerships between community colleges and employers for training in certain “high demand” job sectors.

One reason why the Washington, D.C., metro came in a strong second is because of its work force, which is constantly upgrading its skills.

About 285,000 people are taking classes at more than 40 colleges and universities in the Washington metro, and about 50,000 graduate each year, estimated Tom Morr, managing partner of The Greater Washington Initiative.

“Roughly 41 percent of the degrees issued by colleges and universities in the Washington metro are advanced degrees, compared with a national norm of about 23 percent,” he said.

The HVLQ table ranks metro areas on percent of the adult population who attained college and university degrees at all levels, including the bachelor level.

“I don’t want to sound like a snob, but our recruiters won’t talk with prospective workers unless they have a B.A.; for our needs, the minimum credential required is at least a B.A.,” said Scott Testa, chief operating officer for Norristown, Pa.,-based Mindbridge. The home office of Mindbridge is located just outside of Philadelphia; the Philly metro placed No. 20 in the HVLQ.

Mindbridge, which is a developer of intranet software, was named to the 2003 Inc 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the country. The firm currently employs more than 100 and is in expansion mode.

“We are in conversations to put in a call center and a software development facility,” Testa said. “We'd like to have something in place by the end of 2004.

Number of patents awarded is a crucial measure in the HVLQ rankings, and one factor why the Boston metro took home the No. 1 spot.

“Innovation is the key to new business growth, and one way to measure that is the number of patents awarded in an area,” said Gregory Perkins, interim research director for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the planning and economic development agency for the city of Boston. “Patent awards show how research comes out of the university, goes into development and moves into production.”

One reason the HVLQ gives extra weight to metros that have an abundance of master’s- and Ph.D.-degree granting institutions is because of the views of academic experts like Mary Walshok.

“It’s where you have research — where you have master’s and Ph.D.-level students who are working in labs, on clinical trials, or in applied technology projects — that is the seed corn that produces the new products and the new high-tech businesses,” said Walshok, associate vice chancellor for Public Programs and dean of the University Extension at the University of California at San Diego.

The San Diego metro was ranked No. 12 in the HVLQ.

“Local economies need activities that are creating new jobs, and that’s why innovation is so important, and why I’m such a strong advocate of research institutions, continuing education programs, Ph.D. and post-doctoral programs,” Walshok said. “I think they all have real economic benefit.”

If a business seeks a work force with high educational attainment, then “you’d probably want to look at schools offering advanced degree programs in the area, but you’d also want to look at other factors, such as the attractiveness of the site to that group of employees, quality of life, average commuting time and community safety,” said Jay Doherty, a principal of Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a New York-based consulting firm.

“In the site selection process, it’s crucial that employers check out the specifics for the work force they need,” he said.

Doherty urged employers to take the long view when making a site selection, and to analyze the work force.

“First, determine the occupational labor supply for the kinds of jobs you are looking at, and, very importantly, what is its growth rate,” he said. “You [also] want to look at overall employment and population growth, plus unemployment rates in the area. It’s good to know the vitality of an area — you don’t want to move into a community with a stagnant work force.”

Amarillo, Texas, can serve as a beacon for other communities hoping to land a stable, growing employer.

“Amarillo was bound and determined to show us that they could do it, and in return, they got 700 jobs that offer an average factory pay rate in excess of $18 an hour,” Bell’s Williams said. “That’s the payoff that everyone has achieved so far.”