December issue of Business North Carolina Focuses on Spirit AeroSystems
Posted: 11-25-2008 : CHARLOTTE, N.C.

CHARLOTTE — When Gov. Mike Easley announced in May that Wichita, Kan.-based Spirit AeroSystems would open a factory at the Global TransPark in Kinston that could employ more than 1,000 to make airplane fuselages, few knew how close the state had cut it. Most concentrated on the deal itself, which could transform a poor, rural slice of Eastern North Carolina into an aerospace manufacturing hub.

v The project, code-named “Marco Polo,” came to fruition only after state officials had taken trips to France and Kansas, held top-secret negotiations with a shadowy site-selection consultant, persuaded a Rocky Mount-based nonprofit that distributes a portion of the state’s proceeds from the national tobacco settlement to ante up incentives and made other arrangements for Spirit. In its December issue, Business North Carolina tracks how Marco Polo landed in Kinston. The state bested at least five others — Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Kansas — and some of the world’s most development-hungry countries: India, Malaysia, Morocco, Spain and Brazil.

Business North Carolina is a Charlotte-based monthly magazine that focuses on the people, events and trends that shape business in North Carolina. Since it began publication in 1981, it has won more than 84 national awards for its writing, reporting and design.

 

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