Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe reflects on his experience working in the private sector and the public sector and how it has given him a full understanding of the importance of bringing in big business to our state. From beginning at the ground level to recruiting global headquarters to Tennessee, the ECD helps to bring job opportunities to all areas of the state; which continues economic growth in Tennessee.
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Transcript:
Announcer: For the politics of Nashville, to the history of the Upper Cumberland, this is the Backroads and Backstories podcast with Senator Paul Bailey.
Sen. Bailey: Welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Senator Paul Bailey. In today’s episode, we are meeting with the Commissioner of Tennessee’s Economic and Community Development, Mr. Bob Rolfe. Thank you, Commissioner, for joining us today.
Comm’r Rolfe: Thank you, sir.
Sen. Bailey: Before we get started, I’d like to have you tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself, your backstory.
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes, sir. Well, I graduated from the University of Alabama some many years ago.
Sen. Bailey: Now, wait just a minute. Can you tell our listeners you graduated from where?
Comm’r Rolfe: [laugh]. Well, yes sir, I don’t say this very often, and when Governor Lee discovered that, he, being an Auburn graduate, he said, “Bobby, I knew I’d made a bad decision in bringing you on board.” But I don’t tell many people that, sir. But many years ago, I grew up in Nashville, went away to school, and then I came back to Nashville, and, Chair, I was a marketing major, and I ended up in the finance world. And the only reason I was a marketing major is at the time, it just seemed like that path of least resistance.\n And so I come back to Nashville, I find a job here with an investment banking firm, and spent 18 years in the investment banking business. The company was sold to a Wall Street firm. And because they really wanted our wealth management side of our company, about 1000 of us all went home the first day. [laugh] so we had to all reinvent ourselves.
Sen. Bailey: [laugh]. So, I don’t think it took you very long to find a new position because you became CEO of Medical Reimbursements of America not long after that.
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, so sir, I’ve had a whole host of W-2s. That just happened to be the most recent W-2. But after my days in the investment banking business, I worked for a private equity firm; and probably a couple of years of enjoying that experience. One of the investments was in a company that was struggling. And so I was one of those loud board members that kept asking a lot of questions.
And finally, the CEO looked at me and said, “Well, Bobby, you seem to have such a passion and interest for this”—I was looking to protect our investors, so I ended up working for an office products company and was there for about six years. And then another company, and then ultimately, I ended up at Medical Reimbursements and worked for that company. That was the last business opportunity. And what I discovered is, I really enjoy working in the engine room, as I would call it, Chairman. So, I like being down shoulder-to-shoulder with everybody else in that company that I—you know, we were on a couple of different floors.
My office was up in the operations area, and then we had our corporate office—we’ll call it the C-suite—downstairs. And after six years, sold that company to a Boston-based private equity firm. And then, about that time, it just so happened the governor, Bill Haslam at the time, had called me and said, “Bobby, would you be interested in coming to work for the state?” Well, three weeks later I was at ECD, and as I love to say, at that point I was the third-round draft pick. Senator Haggerty had been his first-round draft pick for four years, and then President Randy Boyd succeeded Bill Haggerty.
And then I joined after President Boyd decided to run for governor. So, I stepped in the last two years. And of course, it was fantastic. These two guys had set our department up to be so successful. Senator Haggerty really spent his energy on recruiting the very large global companies.
President Boyd came along and said, “Let’s now keep that track, but also let’s look at what we can do for the rural communities.” And so created a whole host of programs that have been very successful. And my job was to just not disappoint anybody and keep the foot on the gas with both of those pathways. And we should have had a good run. And of course, it’s about the people, right? And it’s the people that I joined and have been working shoulder-to-shoulder with, they were there, as I love to say, long before I got there and they’re going to be there long after I depart.
Sen. Bailey: So, difference between private sector and government sector?
Comm’r Rolfe: Sir, it takes a lot of patience in the public sector. But having said that, I sleep so much better at night. And I say that to you because in the small business world, I would wake up at 3 a.m. every morning, and I would worry about payroll, or I would worry about personnel, or customers, or customer issues, or technology, or funding, and all those things that would keep any small business person awake at night.
Well, in this role, you find our budgets, sir, and you give us the resources. And the team I work with, they’re such professionals. And so it’s different. But I have learned the patience, and meaning we’ve tried to operate at the speed of business at ECD, at the same time, we’ve got… I’ll call it ‘bumpers’ that we navigate inside of our state government.
Sen. Bailey: Well, and I think the legislature—and you came along at a good time—has given you the resources that you need to go out and continue to market the state. So, explain to us just a little bit, we’ll just transition into talking about the position of commissioner of ECD, and what the department actually does, and tell us a little bit about your job as the commissioner.
Comm’r Rolfe: Very good. So, job one, sir, is to recruit great companies to Tennessee. And I say that’s job one; if we do job one right, when that great company comes to Tennessee and creates jobs for Tennesseans, and that company is successful, job two is to make sure, Chairman, that the company thrives and when it’s time for an expansion, that they consider Tennessee in that conversation. So, we spend a lot of energy, not only recruiting new companies to the state, and great brands, but we also spend a lot of time making sure the companies that already call Tennessee, are thriving, and happy, and successful, and prosperous. So, that’s really, if you said, “Bobby, what are the top responsibilities?”
And then the other fairway that we spent a lot of energy in is making sure that we have programs available for our rural counties. When 80 of the 95 counties are deemed rural, that’s a large sector and that’s a whole host of stakeholders. And so, we spend a lot of energy with a whole host of programs to make sure that those rural communities—and it’s very difficult—we were talking earlier—when you have a great community that—if you’re an hour from the Interstate, knowing that the third greatest cost is transportation, and bringing raw materials in, and then shipping out finished goods. So, we have to be creative to take those less prosperous communities and bring programs to them that will help them thrive.
Sen. Bailey: So, this week, ECD announced that a global data company, NTT, will be opening operations in Tennessee. Tell our listeners a little bit about what this means to Nashville and basically our state.
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes, sir. So, this is a great global brand. Again, another global brand. And why this is important is, sir, these companies follow the leader, and they follow, and they observe what other companies have already come to your state. And so, as I love to say, we are defined by the great brands that called Tennessee home.
And this company, NTT DATA Services, is a subsidiary of the old Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, which is now the fiftieth or sixtieth largest Fortune 500 on the globe. So, this is a really great win. And what they’re looking to do is hire college graduates to come in and learn ITT consulting. And they’re going to be focused on the technology. And so, their responsibility, they’ve got—obviously, you can imagine the kinds of customers they have.
But this is going to be one of their operations centers. And what’s interesting about this, and this is where Tennessee—Nashville will win, but this is where I think Tennessee is going to win. They’re going to focus on recruiting graduates of the four-year schools, not only in Nashville, but I’m going to say, they’ll be interested in, probably, recruiting students from the University of Tennessee to the University of Memphis, and everybody in between. So, that’s a big win. And of course, when I think about it, it’s an FDI project, so a third of the project, sir, that we win are Foreign Direct Investment companies.
And Hörmann will be a great example in your community. And so, what we love about that, Japan, when you look at the number of companies from Japan that call Tennessee home, and you look at all of our FDI projects, Japan collectively has more investment and more jobs created here than everybody else combined. So, it was just a great win for us. And again, family-wage jobs and all the things that Governor Lee asked us to focus on.
Sen. Bailey: So, what’s making Tennessee so attractive to these businesses?
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, it’s about having a very, very good General Assembly.
Sen. Bailey: [laugh].
Comm’r Rolfe: And I say that to you in a very respectful way. And the reason I share that with you is, it’s about low taxes. It’s about having a very pro-business atmosphere and having the requirements to do business in our state. So, the General Assembly obviously sets the laws and sets our budget, and I just—it’s a byproduct of just great fiscally conservative management. And of course, these companies we’re recruiting from the US when you’re recruiting a company off from the West Coast, or the East Coast, or Chicago, the tax burdens and the lack of pro-business friendliness.
And I’ll just give you an example. And I can say this because the last three companies I worked for, we had operations in California. It is the most unfriendly business place to do business, not in the US, but on the globe. It’s just punitive and mean, and they don’t care. And so everything—and then you look at their tax structure, and then you look at their cost of housing, and education. And when you compare that, and these are all data points that these companies really drop into a spreadsheet. Tennessee just grades really, really well, sir.
Sen. Bailey: I can tell you that gentlemen visited with me a week ago, from California, 70 years old, comes from a very wealthy family. They are looking to remove a lot of their assets from California, and they’re wanting to come to Tennessee. They have a family trust that’s about $250 million and they’re looking to house it here in Tennessee. But they’re also wanting to liquidate some of their landholdings in California, and they’re coming to Tennessee to see if they can’t reinvest that money in Tennessee. So, it is—and he actually showed me a text from his state senator, his California state senator that basically, “Said, get your assets out of California.” And that just happened a few weeks ago. Now, can you imagine me, as a state senator, sending one of my constituents and saying, “Get your assets out of Tennessee?” I just can’t fathom that, that an elected state senator of California is telling a constituent, “Get your”—
Comm’r Rolfe: Probably a very important taxpaying citizen, that pays, probably, more than his or her fair share.
Sen. Bailey: So, I’m saying that to say, when you go into these companies, like, in California and some of these other high-tax states, higher-regulated states, the CEOs have got to be asking you those questions. Number one, they’ve probably already researched Tennessee, and they know the tax structure, they know the regulatory environment in Tennessee, they also know that we have the ability to create a good workforce for them. Those have to be some of the initial conversations that you’re having with these companies when you first sit down and have that conversation.
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes, sir. And when you talk about the tax structure, we all pay federal income taxes, as wage earners, but California, since you brought this up, their top tax is about thirteen-and-a-half percent. So, not only are those residents paying the federal income tax, which, I guess, is thirty-seven-and-a-half percent, and then you add on to the thirteen percent, and all of a sudden, those taxpayers are paying more than fifty percent. And in California, it’s just going to go up. We have the same experience, Chairman Bailey, up in New York, in New Jersey, and in Illinois.
And so these companies truly are looking for a great place to raise their family, they’re looking for a place that believes in education, they’re looking for a place that has low taxes. And again, like I said a few minutes ago, sir, it’s about being so pro-business friendly. And what we’re proud of at ECD is when a company comes to look at Tennessee—now make sure your listeners know, we don’t tell companies where to locate. Our responsibility is to show all the assets that are available in Tennessee—
Sen. Bailey: And when you say assets, just so everyone understands, that is basically site-ready locations in the various counties—
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes, we—
Sen. Bailey: Whether it’s in—
Comm’r Rolfe: —call it inventory. Yes, sir.
Sen. Bailey: Okay. All right.
Comm’r Rolfe: And that’s when these companies—you know, they spend years looking at this, and then they’re in a hurry. And so what I always encourage our economic development partners is, the more inventory that is shovel-ready, the better our chances of winning projects. And so that does require the local communities if they own an industrial park, and/or they have a very active industrial development authority, it’s so important to again have as many options available.
Sen. Bailey: And I can say, representing the Upper Cumberland area, when I was first elected in 2014, that was when Academy Sports announced that they were going to build their large distribution center in Cookeville. And so the Upper Cumberland had been kind of stagnant, if you will, as far as some true economic growth and seeing new manufacturers come to the area of any substance or size, employing hundreds of people. But it was like the Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.” And that’s what happened.
When Academy came to the Cookeville Putnam County area, it was like there was a spotlight shined on that area. And now we’ve seen numerous large companies locating to the Upper Cumberland. But they had the foresight. They had industrial parks that were ready to go, with infrastructure in those industrial parks. And so when the companies came looking, they were able to get them shovel-ready and ready to go. Some instances, there’s buildings already in place; they had to modify them, but it cut down the amount of time that it would take if they were having to go find a facility, do a lot of excavating and start from the raw ground.
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, and you’re right. And of course, what we always say at the end of the day, it’s so important for that community to work alongside ECD to recruit these great companies. And it’s important that once they recruit them, that the cities, and the communities, and the counties do everything they can to make sure that that company’s happy because, again, when that company looks for a phase two or phase three project, we want Tennessee to be at the top of the conversation. And what I can also tell you, every project we compete for, is competitive today. Meaning we compete, really, with our southeastern.
Really, I think it seems to be Georgia seems to be in every conversation, South Carolina for advanced manufacturing, North Carolina, Alabama. Those seem to be the states that we always compete against. And so it is so much about—because again, at the end of the day is local, right? Our job is to show a prospective company, here are all the shovel-ready sites, and then they will start their down-selection process. And then it’s up to the local communities. We work with them to really close the deal.
Sen. Bailey: So, how did the pandemic affect the overall recruitment of industry? And did you see, probably, more foreign investors pull back than you did domestic? So, tell us a little bit about over the past year—because it’s basically been a year since we were shut down—how did that affect us, and where are we today?
Comm’r Rolfe: Oh, it’s a great question. So, when you look at our data—and when I say our data, I’m going to talk about our calendar data. So, December 31. When you look at December 31 of 2020, for that year we announced about 100 projects, about 14,000 new jobs, and a CapEx of, call it five and a half-billion dollars. When you look at 2019—again, calendar year ending December 31, 2019, about the same number of projects, maybe a few more jobs, CapEx was a little lighter.
The difference were the Foreign Direct Investment projects. I mean, the world—because these C-suite decision-makers can’t come into the US, and then we can’t go to their country. So, that’s really handicapped our recruiting efforts from a Foreign Direct Investment perspective. At the same time, this data is a little bit misleading, and what I mean by that is, before the pandemic hit and the world truly stopped, Chairman, we probably had 15 to 16 projects that were really ready to announce, and everybody hit the pause button. Over time, when people realized the world was not going to truly collapse, we were able to bring those projects forward.
Having said that, there are still five or six major FDI projects that are still in the queue, that Tennessee, while we had not won that business, we were certainly in the top three. And so we hope those projects will come back. And then the last statement about this whole pandemic, it’s like the world awakened on January 1st of this year, and the business community said, “We have been asleep for nine months. We have got to get moving.” And so we are now as busy, sir, as we’ve been in a couple of years, certainly since I’ve been at ECD.
Sen. Bailey: And so with FDI projects, as well as—
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes.
Sen. Bailey: —I’m assuming—
Comm’r Rolfe: Yes sir. And we’d love the FDI only—I mean, because, again, think of these are pretty large global brands that have determined if they’re going to sell in the US, they’re going to try to make it and they’re going to try to make the economics work in the US. So, those are very lucrative, and of course, I think your listeners would want to know ECD has offices in a couple of Asian countries. So, we have an office in South Korea, we have an office in Japan, and then we have offices and representation in, I believe, eight European countries. And so, that group of people, they’re responsible for telling the state of Tennessee story in-country and helping us to identify companies that are looking to come to the US.
Sen. Bailey: So, we’re talking about bringing in new companies. But tell us a little bit about how you help existing companies do expansions and how you offer assistance for companies that maybe you said, “Hey, I’ve been in Tennessee for 30 years. I’ve been a part of the economy. I’ve been part of the community. How can you help me?”
Comm’r Rolfe: So, Chair, we try to treat companies that already call Tennessee home with the same kind gloves that we would treat a new perspective company. For just how you said it: here’s a company that’s been in our state for 30 years, created an enormous amount of jobs and been very good to those communities. And that’s all to say, when those companies are ready to expand, we want to be at the top of the list, and we want to bring forth the same kinds of incentives. We try not to say, “Well, we got you here for phase one, and we’ve provided these incentives. Now, you’re here, you’re”—we don’t look at life that way.
And so how we do it? We have the states broken up from an ECD perspective, we have what are called boots on the ground, nine different regions of our state. So, these are ECD professionals that work in these nine regions. And their job every day is to make sure that the companies that are inside of the counties where they work are thriving, the workforce is available, whether they have any challenges, whether it’s state roads, whether it’s permitting, whatever from the state perspective. And so we try to be that single point of contact. And I say single point of contact; I mean we try to be so business-friendly, we don’t just ship them off to TDOT, or go down to TDEC, or go to these other, we try to bring everybody to that conversation.
Sen. Bailey: Are we seeing as much offshoring today, say, in the past four years that we saw previous to that?
Comm’r Rolfe: No, sir, and I’ll tell you, so we’ve seen jobs return from Mexico. And then we have seen some reshoring of jobs. Now, we aren’t perfect and say that, the country, there are still a couple of… some products, and I think of semiconductors, that seems to be, right now, where there’s a global shortage. But it just takes so long. I mean, today, if we woke up and said we need a certain raw material, well, we would do everything we could to get that raw material. And I’m going to give you an example, is the electric vehicle is coming to a theater near us.
Sen. Bailey: [laugh].
Comm’r Rolfe: [crosstalk 00:22:32] I promise you. And as part of that conversation, what the OEMs have discovered is the electric vehicle battery, the technology that supports those electric vehicles, has just—moving at lightspeed. And what I mean by that is the old electric vehicle would take eight hours to recharge, and maybe have a 90 to 100-mile radius. Well, that’s not good enough for the [laugh] American driver. But today, the technology is in-house to have, maybe, a 20-minute recharging experience to 80% capacity, and 300 miles.
So, that has really changed. So, what you’re reading today is the OEMs, the Original Equipment Manufacturers, that are going to build EV vehicles, the real driver—not that there aren’t other great components, but it’s about who can get their arms and hands on the batteries. And so there’s a mad dash, but to build a battery, an electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant, those are billion-dollar investments and they take years, and so it just doesn’t happen fast enough.
Sen. Bailey: With Tennessee being a huge automotive hub, they’ve got to be looking at Tennessee.
Comm’r Rolfe: We are, sir, recruiting our fair share of those projects. And what’s interesting about it is Governor Lee said, after he got over the fact that I went to the University of Alabama and still let me stay with the team, said, “We want to plant this EV flag in our state.” And what he meant is, we’re home to 1000 automotive companies that call Tennessee home, and—now that’s combustion engine world—so how do we make sure that we plant the flag to make the transformation to the electric vehicle? Because it’s coming right whether we want to believe that or not, it’s going to be here soon. So, the first week he announced that Volkswagen down in Chattanooga is going to spend $800 million and create another 1000 jobs and that’s going to be their EV platform for their first EV vehicle sold in the US.
And then General Motors back in October announced that they’re going to spend about $2 billion and they’re going to build down in Spring Hill right next to their existing plant, another million and a half square foot and that’s going to be their EV manufacturing facility for their Cadillac Lyriq, which just going to be their—they decided to really go long and large, and they’re starting with the Cadillac product and that’s going to be their first EV. Now, they have the Chevy Volt, I believe, here but they’re thinking they’re going to compete at the higher end of the market. And so with that now, the question is—and of course, our friends at Smart Nissan, the Leaf has been there, there are probably a half-million Leaf vehicles on the road today. So, we’ve got those three OEMs, and then we’re going to now make sure that we can bring the ecosystem of suppliers because as we’ve learned, it’s important that your supplier be within as close a radius, call it 30 or 60 minutes. And so we’re spending a lot of energy, sir, trying to recruit all EV, whatever.
Sen. Bailey: Right. Which one of our neighboring states is our biggest competitor when it comes to economic development?
Comm’r Rolfe: Our friends in Georgia are incredibly tough to beat. Now, we win our fair share projects. But I say that to you; they have two assets, sir, that we cannot manufacture. One is two great port authorities. They’ve got the Port of Savannah, and then they’ve got the Brunswick Port.
And we just obviously are landlocked, so we don’t have that asset. And then they have an airport that truly, you can fly to just about anywhere on the globe. And that’s important for these business decisions. Now, what is Tennessee done? We did recruit British Airways.
So, the beauty is, companies, if you’re trying to get to Europe, you know the beauty is, I think, once you land in Heathrow—which is the nonstop—pre-COVID, daily, you can get to about 135 markets. And so, we are able to work there. And then after Governor Lee, we took him on his first international trip in his first year and we were in Asia. And when he came home, he said, “Bobby, I need you to look into, let’s see what we need to do to try to help support the Metro Airport Authority with a non-stop to Asia.” Now, that’s not going to happen overnight, and Metro now, the airport’s in the middle of a $1.2 billion expansion program.
So, I think over time, we will be able to land—because the data, I think, would support it because we have, well, 200 Japanese companies that call Tennessee home. And then when you look at the Asian Rim, another probably 100 or 200 companies collectively. So, that will happen down the road, sir.
Sen. Bailey: Well, and we’re hoping that post-COVID, that British Airways gets their nonstop going again, into London. And then visiting with the Nashville Airport Authority and their expansion of their international terminal there, they are expecting to get that Asian flight. I mean, I know that they have worked with your department, and they have been working with airlines because they know that once they open that avenue, if you will, into the Asian market, and then into the Europe market with British Airways, the sky’s the limit as far as being able to get business people from all around the globe into Nashville.
Comm’r Rolfe: And if you don’t mind me, just anecdotally, when we were recruiting British Airways, I think we worked on that project for, long before I arrived at ECD, and we finally, we’re able to convince the British Airways decision-makers to just come to Nashville. Now, they were trying to make decisions based on data. And so I could see these guys under the [unintelligible 00:28:26] with the green shades on and the neon lights, just mining data to try to build a case and they couldn’t get there. Well, I won’t bore you with all the details, but we were able to get them to come to Nashville. Had a series of great meetings; they go home, in 48 hours, say, “What would we have missed this one. How soon can we”—now once they announced, they had to build a Dreamliner—a 787—and that took time.
But it has been so successful, pre-pandemic, that they started with four days then they went to five, then they went to seven. And it just, all their projections, a home run. And of course, we feel the same way about an opportunity to bring an Asian carrier. Now, at the end of the day, that’s where the state—we don’t [laugh] we don’t manufacture aircraft. And we don’t—but the airport authority, what you need is you need an airline to make that investment and buy that expensive aircraft.
And then we’ll provide, perhaps, some incentives for them. But that’s how you have a successful partnership. And I’ll just say this about, if you want to see a thriving, large, metropolitan city, look at their air traffic, and their airport, and what planes, and what airlines fly there. And if you want to look at a large metropolitan area that is not thriving economically, when you’re de-hubbed, it’s just painful. You know, American Airlines, they de-hubbed Nashville back in the 80s and it took years. And then Southwest showed up, and of course—
Sen. Bailey: now others are coming in. But, you know, I’ve taken that British Airways flight and it was amazing to me that it was full, both legs. It was full over, it was full back. And their expectations were met a lot sooner.
You mentioned the four, the five, the seven. They started out and they thought, well, if they could just be it, like, 65 or 70% capacity, that it would be a homerun for them. And then all of a sudden, they found out that they’re at 100% capacity, 90 and 100% capacity. And then so they just kept adding those daily flights. And so we’re hoping—or my hope is that as Europe begins to open up, that they’ll be bringing that flight back, and for no other—maybe two flights a week.
I mean, just anything to get it going again. But that’s great insight to know that the ports—I understand the ports, and being in the trucking business, we pick up a lot of loads every week in the Savannah area, Pooler, Georgia, and bring back into the Cookeville area. And so I understand having the ports, but I think a lot of people don’t always understand the importance of air travel, especially with companies. So, where do you see us in the next five years?
Comm’r Rolfe: We hopefully will continue. So, Chairman Bailey, one of the other what I’ll call trophy marquee industries is HQ relos. So, that is a headquarters company picking up from wherever they are, and coming to our state. And the reason that’s so important is they bring the C-suite. When you bring the C-suite, those are the families that are investing in the community.
And they’re the ones that are providing the non-profit and taking care. And those are the guys—the ladies and gentlemen—at the end of the day when it’s an expansion, obviously, the home team usually has a great advantage. So, we’re going to continue to pursue headquarter relocations. Now, it’s not like you’re going to—we’ve already landed probably five or six from California. They’re not global brands, but nonetheless, they’re still really great solid companies.
And what we love about them is they have a manufacturing component. And what we love about that is, they don’t always put the manufacturing facility right next to the headquarters; they separate. And I can think of our friends at Nokian Tyre, they built a $400 million dollar plant over in Ray County, and their US HQ is here in Nashville. And then I think of our friends at Hankook; they spent a billion dollars on a great tire plant in Clarksville, and their headquarters, US North American headquarters, is here. Nissan’s another example.
They brought their North American headquarters from California to Cool Springs, and of course, they’ve got their great manufacturing facility in Smyrna. So, that’s all to say we’re going to continue to focus. Those are just great, great wins. And then we’re also going to continue to focus on the EV, the electric vehicle transformation. And then we’ve got to stay focused on IT and technology.
And I don’t know a company today that does not have a technology strategy, meaning every company is required to that, large, medium, small. So, though—and then also biopharma. And so we’ve had a couple of really great recent wins. In the biopharma industry, it’s really about R&D. It includes manufacturing and it includes HQ, but so much of that human capital resides on the West Coast, up in San Francisco and around San Francisco, Boston, Massachusetts, and then actually Chicago.
And so we’ve been successful in recruiting some smaller projects, but we brought a new professional business director and focused on that sector. So, those are the industries. If you said, “Bobby, what are we seeing more energy and excitement around that?” And of course, we’re going to continue any and everything FDI, Foreign Direct Investment, we’re going to continue to put a whole host of resources behind those initiatives.
Sen. Bailey: So, we’re getting close to wrapping up and you’re listening to Commissioner Bob Rolfe and Paul Bailey, Backroads and Backstories. Who’s had the biggest impact on you since becoming commissioner of ECD?
Comm’r Rolfe: Oh, you’re asking a hard one. I can tell you the person that I’ve taken the 30-plus international trips with is Allen Borden. And Allen was there long before. I think he was recruited by Senator Haggerty, and he is our deputy commissioner and he’s responsible for new business development, and he’s responsible for some of our rural initiatives with Commissioner Sammie Arnold. Workforce development falls in his portfolio, and then Foreign Direct Investment.
And so that has just been, for me because as you know, we all come to work every day, and we have to decide where we’re going to spend our energy. And some people enjoy being in the engine room, some people enjoy doing other things. And I just really feel like where I’ve tried to spend a lot of my energy is recruiting. And it’s a simple formulary, sir. Think of recruiting in the world of sports: your best chance of success is arriving that prospect’s living room, or their dining room, or having a glass of whatever, cheer.
And we spend a lot of energy intentionally going into that company’s living room, wherever that company may reside. And that’s one of the reasons. And of course, like I said, of the 30-some-odd international trips, Allen Borden’s probably been on all but one or two. And so that would be the person that has had the most impact. Now, remember, I work with 99 really good people.
So, you’ve asked me a really tough question. But what I would just simply say is, what I’ve loved about ECD is, Chairman Bailey, they’re also professional and they take their job so seriously. And remember, our job is to—we’re outward-facing, whereas some of the other departments are focused on Tennessee, which we are, but we’re that outward-facing chief recruiting arm for the state. So, that’s all to say it has been a great four-year run, sir.
Sen. Bailey: who are some of the most interesting CEOs that you’ve met as commissioner?
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, Chairman Bailey, we’ve had some success here, sir. So, the CEO of Google was a very interesting and impressive man, and as you know, we recruited them to build a $700 million data center in Clarksville. The CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, is a real visionary, and in that we—and of course, we’ve been successful in landing not one but maybe two projects since I’ve been at the state. Gosh, Jeff Bezos with Amazon; a very interesting person. And these are all people that are just, their visions just go way beyond the world I see and think about.
The CEO of Bridgestone, the CEO of Nissan—and I’m talking about not only the North American CEOs but their CEOs globally—all very interesting people. And so those are the kinds of people. Now, there are a couple of people that we’ve attempted to recruit that we have not won business, so I will leave those out of the conversation, but I can just simply say—and I say that to you because these CEOs are responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives, billions of dollars of cap expenditures and making an enormous—I mean, an impact. And so, the fact that Tennessee happened to land in those conversations—as I said earlier, sir, it’s really about the brands that called Tennessee home, really help define our state. And of course, I love FedEx.
While I’ve actually gotten to know Richard Smith, who is running probably 80 or 90% of FedEx, he’s been a great person. And of course, I love when I’m traveling. No matter where I am on the globe, whether we’re coming or going to that country, always look across the tarmac, and Tennessee’s greatest, most recognizable global brand is that company called FedEx. It always brings, just kind of a great moment.
Sen. Bailey: [laugh]. I can understand that. You have really an interesting story about any of these CEOs that you’ve had interaction or someone that our listeners would find—
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, [laugh] well Sundar is the CEO of Google, and so when he came to make the announcement that Google was going to build a data center—and when you think of data centers in the cloud, nothing resides up in space; these are all—besides satellites, but these are data centers with football-fields full of computers. And so he came to make the announcement. Governor Haslam at the time was out of the state, and so it was up to me to be the person to really welcome, and so I spent maybe 30 minutes with him before the event. And then at the event—and I try, when we have these live jobs announcements, I’m so conscious, and I’m carefully choosing my words, and while I have some really bad BS at times, I don’t know what came over me, Chairman Bailey, but right before I sat down, I said to—looked at Sundar, who was on the front row, the CEO of Google—or Alphabet—and said, “Sir, Governor Haslam couldn’t be here today, but he only has X number of months left. The day he leaves office, I’m going to go pick him up at the capitol, I’m going to take him to our church parking lot, teach him how to drive again, and then we’re going to ride over to the Publix or the Kroger, and I’m going to teach him how to shop again. And then I’m going to go online and teach him how to apply for one of these great jobs you’ve created.” Well, he was thinking, “What is this guy doing?” That’s just so out of bounds. You know, so that would be one. And then one last one, if you don’t mind, if you’ve got just one more minute—
Sen. Bailey: Sure, go right ahead.
Comm’r Rolfe: But my second international trip was to China. Now, for your listeners who have never been to China, it’s just a very long haul, no matter how you cut it. And so, we had been near recruiting some companies, and it was time to fly home. And we’d been there all of two or three days, short trip. Well, we got on the plane—this happened to be a Delta aircraft—it was Shanghai to Detroit.
It was 105 degrees that afternoon. Well, you can imagine, when you’ve got all kinds of—you’ve got cargo, you’ve got human passengers, and so much of it is being able to lift and have enough fuel. Well, we sat at that gate for three and a half hours until 35 people got off of that plane.
Sen. Bailey: Oh, wow.
Comm’r Rolfe: Well, the bad—by the time we flew—the time we departed, it was dark, well into the dark hours, and it was probably 70 degrees. Well, when we got to Detroit, it was one of those stressful because I really wanted to get home that night. Well, the short answer is, they closed the door, I missed going through customs and [laugh] I spent the night at one of the—I’m going to leave the name of the hotel out, but it was the most unpleasant lodging experience. Now, I’ve spent a lot of nights in a lot of hotels. And I just thought, “Boy, I’ve been in the job now 60 days. Is this what [laugh]—is this what the world’s going to look like? Planes, trains, and automobiles.” But anyway, thank you very much for having me as one of your guests. I’ve enjoyed this, and we could talk for days. But thank you. And your support of ECD, sir.
Sen. Bailey: Absolutely. And we appreciate you, and we appreciate what you do for the state of Tennessee. Thank you for listening to Backroads and Backstories. We’ll see you next time.
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