Forbes Picks Louisiana as the Place to do Business

What we've known for years has been confirmed by Forbes Magazine. According to a new report, just released today (01/03/2013) our state is the place to locate or relocate a business.

We've all read the reports of the increase in the job market here in the Lake Area and it's great that Forbes has recognized all that Louisiana has to offer.

From the Forbes article:

At the start of his term, Gov. Jindal appointed Stephen Moret as the Secretary of Louisiana Economic Development.  With tax cuts and ethics reform already identified, Secretary Moret had the ambitious task of recruiting new business into Louisiana.  Additionally, the Department of Labor was replaced with a more business-focused Louisiana Workforce Commission to respond to the state’s changes and the demands of the market.

In conjunction with the Louisiana Workforce Commission and several community and technical college campuses across the state, the LED created Louisiana FastStart that year to improve the workforce in Louisiana. The new programming, which is now comprised of 37 full-time professionals and about 150 specialized training contractors, designs comprehensive, customized workforce solutions to eligible companies that are either expanding or new to Louisiana.  With little time to launch the new initiative, Secretary Moret recruited Jeff Lynn from Georgia’s Quick Start program to lead as the Executive Director of FastStart.

FastStart quickly became one of the strongest economic development tools to come out of Louisiana, turning what was once a poorly perceived workforce in Louisiana into one of the top influencers for new business development.  For the past three years in a row, Business Facilities Magazine has ranked LED FastStart as the #1 workforce-training program in the country. FastStart has contributed in assisting projects that have brought in more than 63,000 direct and indirect jobs and over $28 billion in new capital investment.

Later, in the same article, we find our area mentioned:

Other major economic development wins include several projects across a wide spectrum of industries. General Electric, who will be creating over 600 direct and indirect jobs at their Technology Center in New Orleans, made the decision to open its new division in Louisiana after FastStart created unique enterprise software for the Fortune 500 company. Electronic Arts (EA) will soon be increasing their workforce from 400 to 600 in Baton Rouge after they received help to create internal software that makes their game testing more efficient. And, most recently, Sasol, whose gas-to-liquids complex in Calcasieu Parish will be providing the south western region of Louisiana with 7,000 new jobs and infusing up to $21 billion in capital investment into the state’s economy, was able to select a site for its multi-billion dollar complex six months ahead of schedule with a sophisticated, proprietary GIS-enabled site-selection tool that was created for them.

 

This is even more great news for our area and our state!