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The state of West Virginia rents out a private box above the 18th green of The Old White TPC during the Greenbrier Classic each year.
It's not all fun and games for the state officials in attendance, though. In fact, billions of dollars of potential investments in the state are at stake.
West Virginia Secretary of Commerce Keith Burdette says the Greenbrier Classic is one of the Department of Commerce's busiest and most critical weeks of the year. Businesspeople, project managers and site consultants from all over the world come to the Classic each year as guests of the state to meet with state officials, including Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Burdette, about potential business developments in the state.
Burdette said officials with Procter & Gamble, an international manufacturer of popular consumer product brands, had been in discussions with state officials at the Greenbrier Classic for two years before the company announced in February it would build a $500 million manufacturing plant in Berkeley County. Though Burdette said deals aren't struck at the Classic, the tournament gives state officials the perfect opportunity to build relationships with companies and consultants who represent them and show off what the state has to offer.
"This is our fifth year, and you can probably tie almost any major announcement - and even some minor projects - to a relationship that either started or was built upon at this Classic," Burdette said. "Most of the time, you're dealing with 15-minute phone calls or trying to get into someone's office for 30 minutes, but here it's breakfast, lunch and dinner. We're with them for an extended period of time, they know who they're working with, they know who they're talking to, they develop a level of trust, and that's very, very important."
Throughout the week of the tournament, the state's box on hole 18 is full of executives and representatives of unnamed companies having drinks and watching golf with state officials. It's a common business tactic employed by other states - Burdette said Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear told him this week that the Bluegrass State uses the Kentucky Derby to try to woo companies into investing in his state.
Burdette said the Greenbrier Classic gives him the opportunity to show potential investors one of the best sides of West Virginia.
"The folks that are sitting in here that love golf, they're businessmen," Burdette said. "They play golf. Golf is really a business sport. People go off onto golf courses and they talk about deals and they build relationships by going off to golf. We've got one of the premier tournaments in the country and they get to come here and watch it on the 18th green and we get to sit beside them and talk to them about West Virginia."
Representatives from companies from a variety of industries are brought in throughout the week. Thursday was dedicated to exports. Friday, the state will host international corporations. This weekend, small business owners will be invited.
In an age where emails and conference calls are a big part of business transactions that span states or continents, Burdette said the personal interactions that take place at The Greenbrier can leave lasting impressions that hopefully make a difference when a company decides where to locate its project.
"Even a big company, when they do a project, it's a big deal to them," Burdette said. "They've got their careers on the line. They want to make sure they make smart decisions. One of the guys from Procter & Gamble told us, he said, 'One of the comforting things for us was we had your cell number, we had the governor's cell phone number, we knew we could get to whoever we needed to.' It's all part of a big puzzle you put together to attract a company to West Virginia."
One of the state's biggest targets during the Greenbrier Classic is site consultants - people hired by major companies to evaluate potential sites and determine which makes the most business sense. They act as a proxy between the company they're representing, which remains confidential, and the states where potential development sites are. Site consultants may be working on multiple projects for different companies at any given time.
Jim Clarke, a consultant with real estate consulting firm JLL based out of Tyson's Corner, Virginia, was one of many site consultants in discussions with state officials Thursday. Companies rely heavily on data about potential development sites, Clarke said, so face-to-face meetings with state officials help him do his job better by strengthening his lines of communication and information.
"We've got a pretty extensive database on every metric a company is going to look for before they open up," Clarke said. "Primarily they're looking for available labor, they're looking for corporate tax structure, they're looking for the suitability of the actual piece of property to be developed without any extraordinary site development costs, and they're looking for location. They'll consider multiple opportunities and sift all the data until hopefully the right answer drops out at the bottom."
Though much of the investment decisions come down to dollars and cents, Clarke said his personal evaluations on states do matter, and building personal relationships with state representatives helps him get data companies are looking for quicker - which can ultimately factor into what state lands a project.
"People who do what I do can tend to be a pain-in-the-butt to folks who do what they do because our clients demand information and not always in a reasonable time frame, so it's good to have the relationship to call the person on the other side and if you know them, you're more likely to have the information on a timely basis and they're not going to say 'that so-and-so didn't give us enough time to do what we need to do,'" Clarke said.
"So it helps to establish a relationship. And clients want to know, what do you think of them? Or how do you think they're going to behave, or how do you think they're going to respond? They might not have had interface with that particular state or that particular jurisdiction before, so your professional opinion is valued."
When hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line - like the Procter & Gamble project - talks can extend for years. Burdette said the Greenbrier Classic is the state's biggest opportunity of the year to meet with the people who can help strike the next big business deal in West Virginia.
"These types of things are important," Burdette said. "I know it's hard for a lot of folks who don't understand how intricate and involved and protracted these negotiations to bring a company to the state are or expand a company that's already here, and they don't understand why we would spend money to do this or do that ... It's not that black and white. Even a big company, when they do a project, it's a big deal to them. They've got their careers on the line. They want to make sure they make smart decisions."
Contact writer Marcus Constantino at 304-348-1796 or marcus.c@dailymailwv.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/amtino.