Two members of the Rush County community currently are in Japan, diligently campaigning on behalf of Rush County’s economic outlook.

Rush County Economic and Community Development Corporation (ECDC) Executive Director Greg Griffin, along with Rushville Common Council President Mike Pavey are currently in Tokyo, meeting with Honda executives and other potential investors and suppliers that will come with the new Greensburg Honda plant.

Griffin and Pavey will also be paying a visit to the parent companies of Rushville’s Fujitsu Ten and INTAT.

This is only a small step in a process that could have a huge economic impact on Rush County.

“Honda is an economic development win for the entire southeast region,” Griffin said. “But obviously, we here at the ECDC focus on Rush County, and we see nothing but positive coming from this.”

One of the ECDC’s priorities is making sure that the Rush County workforce is experiencing a boost, while at the same time protecting the city’s existing workforce and industry.

“There are opportunities for jobs with good benefits, but we want to make sure that it doesn’t hurt our existing businesses’ workforce,” Griffin said. “The ECDC is proactive in that area. Our goal is to implement training programs to get people prepared for the Honda jobs, as those positions will be extremely competitive. I think the strongest misconception about Honda is that just anyone can walk in a get a job there, and that’s not the case. They’re only hiring the cream of the crop, so to speak.”

Workforce development is strategic goal No. 2 for the ECDC. They want to help improve the quality and availability of workforce in Rush County, and to be proactive rather than reactive to workforce development issues.

“We’re hoping to have some workforce development opportunities to train at Rushville’s current companies, so that others can be trained to take open positions left by those going to Honda,” Griffin said. “It’s inevitable that we’re going to lose some qualified employees to Honda, but we don’t want to wait until there’s a problem and our companies are struggling due to lack of manpower. We want to have a plan of action in place.”

A meeting between the ECDC and local businesses and industries is planned for the near future. Griffin wants to address employers’ training needs and get input on what they think Honda might do for their workforce.

“We want to make sure that these industries can adequately train their employees so that they will be able to be productive and have no issues,” he said.

A major benefit of Honda’s plant site in Greensburg will be the added businesses and industries that the factory will bring with it.

“We’ve got a good location for suppliers,” Griffin said. “We’ve already had some inquiries from tier-1 suppliers to Honda, and our county has been a finalist for a location for these industries. These suppliers and supplemental industries are our number one priority. And the 2,000-plus jobs that Honda will bring with it will turn into many more jobs, and offer a much more significant impact on the job market than the direct jobs.”

The county has ample industrial land at the Industrial Park North (across from INTAT) with infrastructure already in place for these industries to relocate. There is property available in Milroy as well.

“Our job is to make sure that these industrial sites are shovel-ready,” Griffin said. “The state has a program and it outlines having options and infrastructure in place, permits as well as having environmental issues looked at. All the suppliers have to do is come and build. This is extremely important to tier-1 suppliers, because all they have to do is come and build. They don’t want to have to wait for a community to get their act together.”

Griffin feels that the suppliers and vendors will benefit existing industries.

“There will be more restaurants, more activity and more opportunity to attract other amenities,” he said.

The ECDC also feels that another good plan is to delineate residential subdivisions in the county where the infrastructure is already in place.

“We need to plan them accordingly so that these housing establishments will benefit the agricultural community, rather than having them just pop up randomly and eat up prime agricultural land,” Griffin said. “All residential development will go somewhere else if this isn’t planned well. People that Honda is going to employ need somewhere to live, and it will come our way and if everything is well-developed and planned, we’ll capture that.”

Griffin feels that housing developments will be a positive for the community. Income tax revenue will be important and schools will benefit with increased enrollment. Honda will mean more traffic, more people in and out of the county, more businesses for downtown and more businesses for existing downtown merchants.

The ECDC has a Honda task force committee that keeps on eye on a wide variety of issues.

Another economic goal is to expand State Road 3, recently named a Major Mobility Corridor by the State of Indiana.

“There is an opportunity here to encourage the state to further improve highway 3 into a 4-lane divided highway,” Griffin said. “With the additional traffic, this will be a major economic development corridor between Greensburg and Muncie.”

In March 2005, Rush County and the ECDC sent a proposal to the state through State Rep. Cleo Duncan for the four-lane highway.

“There is more reason to upgrade now,” Griffin said. “We need to initialize a truck route around Rushville. We don’t want to lose traffic downtown, but then again we don’t want it to be overly congested. It needs to flow.”

Mayors and town councils along the corridor have all endorsed the proposal, and the ECDC is still encouraging citizens to write to their state legislators in support.

A number of things have already been done in order to put the pieces in place for all of Rush County’s businesses to grow and develop.

“The ECDC Web page now has Japanese translation as does our brochure, which was specifically designed for the Japanese suppliers,” Griffin said. “We’re working on developing a relocation package with the Chamber, as well as the shovel-ready site to capture growth and development.”

The ECDC has also been direct-marketing potential suppliers.

“We researched and developed a supplier list of our own, and have been direct-mailing information on benefits of relocating to our county,” Griffin said. “We also attended the Midwest U.S. Japan American Association meetings in Indianapolis in September. Rush County had a booth in the hospitality suite to network and talk with potential investors, and have also distributed new Japanese literature, with which we had help from local Japanese companies to help translate.

“We’re just building relationships which will hopefully develop new business opportunities in the community,” he concluded.



Rushville Republican staff writer Elizabeth Gist can be contacted at (765) 932-2222 or via e-mail at elizabeth.gist@cnhimedia.com. To add a comment visit our Website at www.rushvillerepublican.com.