By Michael C. Randle
Once, long ago, a reporter from the Nashville paper, The Tennessean, asked me in an interview, “Has Tennessee gotten a good deal with the incentives it has paid to Nissan?” I really had a hard time controlling my voice on the other end of the phone. I wanted to scream, “That is a clown question, bruh!” (Quote credited to Bryce Harper of the Phillies earlier in his career to a reporter in the locker room.)
I explained the incentives question to the reporter this way: “Okay, let’s see, Nissan employs about 12,000 people in Tennessee — at its plant in Smyrna, its headquarters south of Nashville, and its engine plant in Winchester, and other locations not counting suppliers. So, my answer is ‘yes,’ Tennessee has benefitted magnificently from the Japanese automaker over the decades. In fact, Nissan may be Tennessee’s greatest corporate capture in state history.”
Reporter: “But the incentives paid to Nissan have been huge over the years. How does one rationalize so much taxpayer money to one company?”
Grumbling, I said, “Get your calculator out, boy. Multiply 12,000 employees by $70,000 a year in average wages times 32 years (43 years now since Nissan opened its plant in Smyrna in 1983), or since the Nissan plant has been producing cars in the Nashville suburb of Rutherford County.”
The reporter got out his calculator: 12,000 x $70,000 x 32. He said after the math work was done, “There are too many zeroes on the screen of my calculator.” I said, “There’s the answer to your question; too many zeroes to count in wages paid.”
In fact, Nissan currently pays about $800 million a year in wages in the state of Tennessee and has on average paid about $600 million a year or thereabouts for over 43 years. Get your calculator out.
The corporate and economic development communities struggle to explain “the math.”
For over five decades I have seen both the South’s economic development community as well as the executives who have opened facilities in the region struggle with how to explain the benefits of a project.
They mention tax generation, jobs and investment numbers, which to the public means almost nothing. Even to some politicos those figures mean nothing. The regular citizenry, for the most part, wouldn’t know the inner workings of the economic development process or the “math” if it bit them on the knee.
I attended SEDC down in Bonita Springs in August of this year. Great meeting, great organization. According to former SEDC president Joyce French, Mike Mullis and I were the longest tenured SEDC members at said meeting. Matt Tackett does a wonderful job, and if you are not a member of SEDC, you need to be.
It’s the wages!
At one SEDC@BonitaSprings session, there were economic development secretaries of several states on the stage, including Alex Kelly (Florida), Clint O’Neal (Arkansas), Bill Cork (Mississippi), Jason El Koubi (Virginia) and Harry Lightsey (South Carolina). They were being interviewed during a session moderated by Gray Swoope, who has headed up both Mississippi and Florida economic development agencies.
The panel covered a variety of topics including the importance of communicating the impact of economic development. Swoope asked the question, “What is the one thing economic developers can do better professionally to support state efforts.”
Bill Cork of Mississippi said something like, “If they don’t know the math, it is impossible for them to learn what we do, how we do it. Without knowing the math, it is difficult to explain it to them.”
My question is, aren’t we the ones who are supposed to explain the math to our stakeholders, including voters? If so, we are still not doing a great job about explaining the most important thing that we do, which is create wages, create spending in our own communities.
The best single quote at the SEDC 2026 annual conference was from Jason El Koubi, who will attend and speak at SEDR@RosemaryBeach December 10-12 at The Pearl Hotel at our annual gig. El Koubi asked Cork at the session, “Do they have to know how to read to know the math?”
My Revelation in Florida
It should be noted I was traveling in Florida in 2012 (photo of that meeting with Gray Swoope here) and I met up with Gray at the Enterprise Florida office in Orlando. He was the secretary at the time. While on that trip driving in between cities, I had a revelation. I simply told myself in the rental car, “It’s the wages, stupid! Why don’t we talk more about wages?”
We desperately need to convey to those involved what wages do, how they contribute to the economy and why they are supremely important.
I have taken many other reporters who work for different media properties to the parking lot of a plant or office. I say, “See that building, Jack? In that structure, about $150 million is paid to its workers every year. That $150 million is spent here locally, the area you report on.”
Reporter: “What? One hundred and fifty million a year? In that one building?” Me: “Yes, and it is spent on all kinds of things in your community, like home sales, rent, utilities, travel, dining, gas stations and so much more.”
Reporter: “I had no idea. Now I get it. It is the wages, isn’t it?” Me: “Yup, the wages are the most important thing about economic development. Wages are like air, water and food. We cannot live without them.”
A Revelation from Gray Swoope
Gray had a revelation, too, more than a dozen years ago. “I also had a revelation at that time (2012) that all the economic development community talked about was the transaction. That is jobs, wage and capital investment. Few talked about the transformation! A garbage pile can grow, but what the profession is about is development, transforming the community to one of prosperity and opportunity. It’s the transformation, not the transaction that’s now included in all my current presentations and work today. Payroll transforms communities.”
To conclude and speaking of the “process” of economic development, I want to borrow a quote from the great Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban, one that he said daily to his coaching staff. Saban obsesses over this: “Explain the why, not just the how or the what.” That certainly worked for “Coach.”
