Birmingham News -- Sunday, January 13, 2008
Rain on a blustery May morning back in 1994 had turned the Tuscaloosa County soil into muddy slop, but Billy Joe Camp didn't mind a bit. At the time, Camp was director of the Alabama Development Office, and he had played a key role in landing the Mercedes-Benz plant that was being built at the site in Vance. Camp and other Alabama leaders had joined Mercedes executives at a groundbreaking ceremony.
For Camp, it was a great day, one that represented a turning point for the state. He spilled out a prediction. "The sky's the limit," he said. "This is not our only deal. It may not even be our best one." It was hard to know back in 1994 if Camp would be right. But he was.
The rapid expansion of the auto industry in Alabama has been nothing short of mindboggling. Before the first M-Class rolled off the assembly line in Vance on Feb. 14, 1997, the state had never produced a vehicle. Last year, Alabama's three auto plants made 738,832 cars, minivans and SUVs, cementing the state's reputation as a major production center.
Before that first M-Class made its Valentine's Day appearance, Camp wasn't the only one to glimpse the future. "The fact that this is a magnet industry means that it will help transform the economy of this state," predicted Malcolm Portera, then vice chancellor at the University of Alabama. He later became chancellor. In just the sense these men imagined, Mercedes changed everything. And not just in the auto industry. Alabama's economy has become one of the nation's strongest. Between 2002 and 2006, per capita income in the state rose 23 percent, higher than the national average and every other Southern state.
Alabama continues to land high-profile industrial projects, including some that dwarf "Project Rosewood," code name for Mercedes. One example: the investment in ThyssenKrupp's Mobile area steel mill is more than 10 times greater than the original Mercedes project in 1993. ADO, Camp's old agency, says there were 2,359 new and expanding industry announcements across Alabama between 2003 and 2007. Those projects involved 107,000 jobs and investment totaling $18.7 billion. Alabama's success has been noticed in places such as Michigan, birthplace of the nation's auto industry.
"There was a time when folks in northern states like Michigan thought of Alabama as impoverished and backward ..." Paul Kersey of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich., wrote in an essay titled "Sweet Home Alabama." "But if experts and political leaders in Michigan take pot shots at Alabama today, the words are bound to ring hollow because Alabama's economy is poised to overtake Michigan's in the important task of providing opportunities for workers to find good jobs," he added.
Maybe one day this period will take another name: The Alabama Miracle