Harold Force is the President of Force Construction Company, Inc.

I don't blog frequently, but I do want to share a few of my thoughts following the roundtable with Gerry Dick.  The statistics on Asian companies operating in Indiana – investment, jobs, dollar turnover – truly speak for themselves.

Ryan Hou is the CEO of LHP Software, LLC.

LHP has 150 employees with an average age of 28 and three-fourths have an advance degree in addition to an EE, ME or a bachelors degree in computer engineering.  Different cultures bring different challenges on how to work together.  All people who work at LHP have to be open-minded and willing to accept new ways of communicating with each other.  We celebrate Chinese New Year and Indian Diwali holidays and have free Chinese classes for our non-Chinese speaking employees and provide free English enhancement class for our non-English speaking population.  Cultural differences make LHP stronger in a sense of LHP community when recruiting talented engineers but also bring new challenges of retention of young people.  LHP must find ways to make our people feel like home when working here in Columbus, Indiana.  For our U.S. customers and projects, LHP recruits in the U.S. only and brings smart, talented, university graduates into the workforce.  LHP strongly believes that with honesty, integrity and an open-minded way of treating all people, LHP can create the best working environment for our employees.

Jim Rebber is the General Manager of Quality at Seymour Tubing, Inc.

The two things that I would like to discuss center around workforce improvement and global manufacturing as it relates to Indiana's competitiveness.  As was mentioned during the roundtable, Indiana is very willing to grant funds for employee training.  This question or thought that I have is, "How do we motivate the workforce in Indiana to take advantage of this opportunity?"  Is it a question of an employee's belief that there is not a need for them to improve their knowledge and/or skill base in order to compete for jobs in the future?  Or, are there some other factors holding many people back from taking advantage of these programs?  Maybe the question should be, "What is the level of involvement of people taking advantage of state provided training opportunities?"  The next question should be, "How do we increase this involvement?"

Second thought: Global competitiveness.  I thought about this on the way home.  I enjoyed hearing the gentleman from Taiwan talk about the fact that manufacturing jobs were leaving Taiwan and going to South Asia.  They have some of the same fears that we have here in the U.S.  The loss of middle-class jobs and, therefore, the weakening of the middle-class in terms of numbers is a real concern for them.  It was reported that they were going to look to the U.S. for answers – namely creating the service type industry base.  Truly it is a small world.  If we believe that it is important to keep a sound industrial base here in Indiana, then we are going to simply have to work smarter than the rest of the world in finding ways to compete in this global economy.  Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss issues that face Indiana.

Vincent Liu is the Senior Vice President of Telamon Corporation.

It is well recognized, in general, that the U.S. economy is moving from manufacturing to service.  The type of manufacturing jobs that will remain in the U.S. for the future, will be those in association with high-tech and knowledge-based skill sets.  Therefore, the future workforce has to be well educated in order to be globally competitive.

However, we also believe that the globalization will lead Asian companies to move their operations to the U.S.  We have seen European and Japanese manufacturing companies establishing factories in the mid-western states in recent years.  The other Asian companies from Taiwan and China will follow in the next ten years.  In order for Indiana to be a preferred state to host those companies, the Indiana business community should do more to build a reputation in Asia through more communications and learn more Asian culture/language through local events (i.e. those hosted by Ice Miller).

Like other Asian companies in Indiana, Telamon will always be willing to share its experience with local companies that have an interest in building business relationships in Asia or in the U.S.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation administers the state’s broad array of incentive programs aimed at attracting and retaining businesses from around the world.  Certainly these incentives can and do have a key impact on the decision to locate or expand here.  What is less well known is the impact of “soft” or quality of life issues.  For example, at an investment seminar we presented in Tokyo a couple of years ago, the first question posed to the Governor was not about taxes or other business costs but rather, “Can I take the Indiana driver’s license exam in Japanese?”  The Governor’s answer – “yes, you can now” -- set the tone for a welcoming, Hoosier-hospitality approach.

That welcoming atmosphere can play an important role in attracting business.  Imagine a pending assignment as a manager for a new plant overseas.  All other things being equal, who wouldn’t prefer to go to the welcoming, friendly location.  That is the practical, personal side of a pending business decision and it won’t go unnoted.  In addition to business costs and our incentives, companies ask about neighborhoods, schools, golf courses, museums, foreign language instruction for children, restaurants, and so on . . . all the things that make for a full and rich living environment.  They will ask about the incentives, of course, but the first question is frequently about something else.