Chiquita Doesn't Split

March 22, 2006

Siemens stays put as well.

More than 600 U.S. jobs that could have gone elsewhere are going to remain in the greater Cincinnati area as a result of recent location decisions -- albeit for different strategic reasons -- by two global companies: Chiquita Brands International Inc. and Siemens AG.

Despite relocation bids from Atlanta and South Florida, Chiquita Brands, best known for bananas, is keeping its 100,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and more than 300 employees in Cincinnati.

Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita Brands' chairman and CEO, made the decision not to relocate so the food-products company could concentrate on its top three business priorities, explains Michael Mitchell, director of corporate communications. Chiquita Brands' business priorities are to digest some recent changes in European tariffs on bananas, to improve the company's profitability in North America and to continue the integration of last June's acquisition of Fresh Express, a producer and distributor of fresh salads, fruit and vegetables.

Mitchell declines to say whether any economic-development incentives were offered by any of the areas the company considered. He says simply, "The incentives were not a factor in the decision to stay."

Meanwhile, the existence of a skilled workforce was a major reason for Siemens Energy & Automation Inc., a unit of Germany-based Siemens AG, to remain in the Cincinnati area. Siemens is investing $30 million to renovate and expand its large-motor manufacturing at the historic Norwood Works and will create a "global motor" R&D center there. Work began in January and will be done in stages over three years, with just over two-thirds of the total investment going for new machinery, equipment and technology. Production will continue during the renovation and expansion.

Siemens confirms it is receiving some incentives from the state of Ohio to stay and expand, but declines to discuss the details. However, Aubert Martin, president and CEO of Siemens Energy & Automation, makes no secret that its skilled workforce was a deciding factor in staying. Siemens employs about 300 people at Norwood, where it makes large electric motors used in factory automation for customers in the three NAFTA countries, the United States, Canada and Mexico. For "these types of motors, you need a skilled and experienced workforce, otherwise you cannot keep the quality level that our customers are expecting," Martin says. The employees will receive additional training. "We will bring this workforce to the next level. It's a big part of the investment as well."

Chiquita Brands' and Siemens' decisions to remain in Cincinnati are "obviously good news" from his perspective, states Nick Vehr, vice president of the Cincinnati USA Regional Partnership, an economic-development agency. "Whenever great global brands decide to expand and stay in our region, we view it as a sign that this is a great place to do business. . . .

Because of our access, because of our diversified economy and our educational institutions, I think we're fairing very well in holding our own as a community that is being successful at retaining its manufacturing base."

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.