Mod Mobilian | Notes on Mobile Economics

Notes on Mobile Economics

Mobile’s Economy

Through the 1980s, the central business district became a ghost town. In the 1990s, the Mississippi casinos further eroded its economy. – Jeff Amy, PR, 10/28/07
Mobile County’s economy fell steadily between 2000 and mid-2004, due to the collapse of paper mill and manufacturing jobs and a national recession.
- Mobile’s economy grew only 6.8 percent between 2001 and 2005.
- One private firm ranked Mobile’s growth from 1994 to 2004 as 273rd out of 361 U.S. metro areas. – Jeff Amy, PR, 10/28/07
The post-Katrina boom represented a remarkable turnaround for Mobile.
- The population of Mobile County surged by about 10,000 in the three months following Katrina, according to Semoon Chang; the county, meanwhile, gained some 4,700 new jobs. More than 2,200 new homes were built.
- Before Hurricane Katrina, rising industrial vacancy rates were a serious concern. After Katrina, these dropped to near zero.
- Mobile’s housing market began to slow in 2006, and more than half of the 10,000 people who moved to the county following Katrina subsequently left.
See Jeff Amy, PR 10/28/07, 1/13/08, 4/12/08

Mobile County had a total economy of $11.2 billion in 2005 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)

- Global Insight, a private firm based near Boston, estimated for the U.S. Conference of Mayors that Mobile’s economy was worth $12.9 billion in 2005. – Jeff Amy, PR, 10/28/07
- Huntsville’s metro area, which has slightly fewer people than Mobile County, had an economy one-third larger in 2005 predominantly due to higher wages
Don Epley with the University of South Alabama Center for Real Estate Studies (CRES) computes the CRES indexes to show the change in gross metropolitan product for Mobile and Baldwin counties. Epley constructs his forecast by multiplying the number of jobs in the counties by personal income received. All of Epley’s measures are figured in 2005 dollars.
- Mobile County’s economy grew 2.1% in 2006 and 1.6% in 2007 according to the CRES Index. This is compared to a US GDP growth of 2.2% in 2007
- CRES figures indicate that Mobile’s total economy grew to $11.68 billion by the end of 2007.
- CRES projected that Mobile County would grow by 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2008
Mobile County had capital investment totaling $245 million in 2006 with nearly 1,200 new jobs with an average salary approaching $50,000, according to the Chamber of Commerce.
Mobile was ranked 221^st in economic strength among metropolitan statistical areas in 2007, according to a report by POLICOM of Palm City, Fla. The Birmingham-Hoover region had the highest ranking in Alabama at fifth, with Montgomery ranked 36th, Huntsville at 97th and Tuscaloosa coming in at 119th.
Mobile County will have the fastest growing economy over the next five years among all 363 American metropolitan areas as measured by gross metropolitan product (GMP), growing 34.31 percent from 2007 through 2012 according to a forecast by Moody’s Economy.com which was published Forbes Magazine. – PR 2/1/08
Moodyseconomy.com, said Mobile is a bright spot nationally and regionally for several reasons including the strength of the shipbuilding sector and natural gas exploration and drilling.
Forbes Magazine ranked Mobile 118 of 150 communities as the best place for business. Inc. Magazine ranked Mobile 44 of 90 cites as an ideal location for business. Mobile was eighth on Foreign Direct Investment magazine’s “Top Ten Small Cities of the Future” in 2006 (Huntsville placed second.)
Southern Light, LLC and Hargrove & Associates, Inc. returned Mobile to the Inc. Magazine 500 fastest growing private companies list for the first time since 2001, when local promotional products manufacturer Crown Products was included.
Mobile County, according to figures released last year by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, had a total economy of $11.2 billion in 2005, the most recent year available.
The median income of Mobile County households was $37,391, the 10th-lowest among U.S. counties of more than 250,000 people. Baldwin County’s median household income was $49,119, fifth-highest among the 21 large counties in the state. In Mobile County, 21.1 percent of all people lived below the poverty line in 2007, the 10th highest rate among counties with more than 250,000 people. Baldwin County’s rate was 10.3 percent.

Mobile County Employment

Employment Base: Services – 27%; Wholesale & Retail Trade – 27%; Government – 15%; Manufacturing – 12%; Construction & Mining – 8%; Transportation & Public Utilities – 6%; Finance, Insurance & Real Estate – 4%.
The average wage in Mobile County in 2007 was $34,380
Local leaders like Bay Haas, executive director of the Mobile Airport Authority, have expressed worry over having a qualified work force for anticipated aerospace jobs. Bender has reported that it must often look outside the country to find qualified welders.
The rate of unionization in Mobile is higher than the southeast - 14% in Mobile versus 5% in the southeast according to the Competitive Strategies Group report.
Mobile Works Inc.. is a partnership of business, education, labor and community leaders, providing businesses and people with training, leadership, labor market information and employment programs. Since its inception in 2000, Mobile Works has invested more than $19 million to fund job and educational programs.
53% of Mobile area employers said they expect to add workers during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the survey by Manpower Inc. The outlook was the highest in Alabama and ranked eighth nationally. – PR 9/11/07

Bill Pfister, Austal’s vice president of government programs, said his company is hopeful that Alabama Industrial Development Training will continue to work with Mobile community leaders to establish vocational programs. Austal is teaching its own workers using a 20,000-square-foot building at the Brookley Field Industrial Complex.

According to the Mobile Chamber of Commerce, the percentage of unionized manufacturing plants in the Mobile area is estimated at 3% with the largest representation in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers and the United Paperworkers International.
According to www.unionstats.com, the overall rate of unionization in 2006 was about 10%, 5% of private employees and 30% of public employees.
The Mobile Chamber of Commerce lists union coverage by company

Alabama is a “right-to-work” state with 12% of its manufacturing workers unionized.

Mobile County Economic Development

The Mobile Chamber of Commerce was the first in the state, chartered by the Alabama Legislature in 1854.
- Mobile Chamber of Commerce Mobile Bay Regional Overview 2008
Envision Coastal Alabama is a regional development organization started in 1998.
Mobile, Washington, and Baldwin counties have voted to join a regional economic development alliance. Clarke and Escambia counties are considering resolutions supporting the alliance in coming months
The Mobile County Commission implemented a tobacco tax with a portion used for economic development purposes. This tax totals about $950,000 annually
The Small Business Administration has announced it will be opening an office in Mobile. SBA already has “partners” in Mobile — among them the Small Business Development Center at the University of South Alabama, the Women’s Business Center and the SCORE chapter housed in the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce.
University of South Alabama Small Business Development Center
The two key public business parks are the Mobile Commerce Park, which has seen limited growth over its fifteen-year history, and USA’s Technology Park.
The Mobile Innovation Center is the community’s small business incubator
Low cost of living is an asset to Mobile. Mobile’s ACCRA Cost of Living Index is 89.7.
Come Back Home to Mobile is an effort to attract young, educated Mobilians back to Mobile
Mobile Area Young Professionals Association (MAYPA)
The City of Mobile Industrial Development Board (IDB) is granted the power by the State Legislature to give tax exemptions to recruit businesses to move to or expand operations in Mobile. – Harbinger
- Alabama enacted its first major industrial recruiting legislation, the Cater Act, in 1949 which remained largely unchanged for four decades. The law allowed local governments to create Industrial Development Boards with authority to issue tax-exempt industrial development bonds and to grant tax exemptions. These boards sold municipal bonds, used the proceeds to construct manufacturing plants, and leased the plants to their client companies. Local government, through an industrial development board, became the landlord of the industrial property. The board charged a rent to cover costs and the repayment of the bonds. Ownership of the property by a public board exempted the property from ad valorem taxes. Under the Cater Act, property-tax breaks were tied to the board holding title to the property.
- This requirement for board ownership of industrial property ended with Alabama’s Tax Incentive Reform Act of 1992. The 1992 act allows city and county governments themselves, or the industrial development boards or county authorities they approve, to abate property taxes and other taxes without a lease.
- The 1992 act also states that educational taxes cannot be abated, and business must contribute to the schools.
- In 1962, the city of Mobile approved the City of Mobile IDB. In 1981, the county approved the Mobile County IDB under the 1977 law authorizing county industrial development boards.
- The Mobile Industrial Development Board is a 13-member commission appointed by the mayor of Mobile that can grant 10-year renewable property tax holidays for industries that locate in the county.
- While a tremendous tool for economic growth, critics charge that the IDB courts energy-intensive and polluting industries, such as chemical plants, paper mills, and incinerators, because the heads of the electricity and gas utilities hold positions on the board. Since the board’s creation, its members have consisted exclusively of prominent businesspeople, including the presidents of utility companies, banks, and the Chamber of Commerce. See here for environmental concerns and the IDB. – Harbinger
Mobile’s Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ) accounted for roughly $1 billion in economic activity.
- The zone consists of 12 non-contiguous sites, comprising 9,848 acres, located throughout Mobile and Baldwin counties.

Competitive Strategies Group September 2005 Report:

Strategies for job creation placed greater emphasis of retention of existing business instead of diversification of industries from 1985 to1995, when existing industries were closing or reducing its work force considerably. Mobile Chamber’s Partners for Growth capital campaign has a 5 year budget of $7 million of which $3.7 million is allocated for existing businesses and $2.6 million for new development
- The Chamber’s vice president of economic development is quoted in the May 19, 2003 Mobile Register as saying, “The days of the hunter-gatherer approach to economic development are gone. While bringing in new business is important, he said, the majority of his time must be spent helping existing companies prosper.”
The Mobile County Commission contributes over $400,000 a year to different organizations for economic development, including the Chamber, the Business Information Center, the Forestry Commission, Mobile United, Women’s Business Assistance Center and others. The County does not conduct an annual audit of these organizations.
The Chamber’s economic development capital campaign “Partners for Growth” has a target goal of 1,100 new jobs per year or 5,500 over five years. This compares to similar campaigns in Chattanooga, with a goal of 20,000 jobs and Macon, GA with 8,400 jobs.
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita, office and industrial space has gone from 17% vacancy rates to near zero. The challenge to the County leadership will be to install sound economic policies and structure that will sustain this growth after a three-year period when many of these leases will expire.
“We applaud the University’s investment into cancer research and in a research and technology park, but these two product improvements initiatives will not necessarily be a panacea to Mobile’s economic success… Biotech is limited to a select few cities: San Diego, Research Triangle Park, NC, Boston and in emerging cities such as Houston, Austin and Baltimore. Florida will become more predominant in biotech research and commercial applications once the Scripps facility comes on line. There is limited growth opportunity for this to be a significant cluster in Mobile”.
“Nearly all of our survey respondents said that the City of Mobile’s permitting processes and customer service was a hindrance to growth in the City. The County of Mobile has fewer permitting and regulatory restrictions than the City and as a result, receives higher marks for its business climate and ease of doing business in the County.”
“High Speed Internet access is in limited areas geographically of the County. Investment needs to be made to expand high-speed access throughout Mobile County if the County is to be successful in attracting “Mobile Entrepreneurs”. Further, Mobile should consider creating WI-FI locations downtown, and in all public buildings.”
“Many of the economic development allies familiar with Mobile commented that even though some in the business and government leadership within the community like to say that there is a team approach for economic development in Mobile, it’s hard to see. In many instances, these allies and consultants observed territorial boundaries, run away egos, or weak leadership as a result of no one defined lead organization for economic development.”.
Jay Garner, who wrote the study for CSG, was director of economic development for the Mobile Chamber of Commerce during 1985-1994

Industries

Among Alabama’s publicly traded companies in 2001, Mobile claimed only three (Birmingham was headquarters to 26). Among Alabama’s top 100 private companies in 2001, five were headquartered in the Mobile area (compared to 37 in the Birmingham MSA).
Business with headquarters in Mobile include: International Shipholding, Ball Healthcare Services (nursing homes and assisted living facilities); BancTrust Financial Group; Big 10 Tire Stores; Integrity Media; The Mitchell Company; Shoe Station; and Volkert & Associates.
- Mobile has three publically traded companies: International Shipholding (NYSE: ISH), BancTrust Financial Group (Nasdaq: BTFG), and Computer Programs and Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CPSI). Mobile has tentatively lost Energysouth (ENSI) in a sale to California-based Sempra Energy.
- Mobile suffered the loss of corporate headquarters in the 1990s, including Delchamps, Ruby Tuesday’s/Morrison’s Restaurants, and Gayfer’s.
The heaviest concentration of large firms in the Mobile area is in chemicals and fiber manufacturing. Mobile is also heavily weighted in lumber and wood products industries and in maritime and shipbuilding.
- Although the chemical industry remains a strong player, the area has diversified its economy away from its traditional paper and chemical industry core. During the last 15 years, the oil and gas, tourism, and aerospace industries have expanded significantly.

Manufacturing

The Alabama Industrial Directory for 1999-2000 includes 78 Mobile area manufacturing firms with over 100 employees (compared to 156 in Birmingham area).
- 23.1 percent of Mobile’s firms are categorized as technology companies (compared to 16 percent of Birmingham area firms).
Mobile has three primary industrial areas: south Mobile county and the Theodore Industrial Park, downtown Mobile on the waterfront and Blakely Island, and north Mobile County along the Mobile River.
Proximity to port facilities makes the Mobile area a prime location for firms that export and/or import. Of Mobile area businesses, 59 percent export, while 38 percent import (compared to 53 percent and 31 percent respectively in Birmingham)
- Foreign investment is also pronounced in Mobile— about 18 firms, or 23 percent, are foreign-owned (compared to 6 percent in Birmingham)

Lumber and Pulp

In the post-war period, the pulp and paper industry became a major industry. Between the 1920s and the 1990s, Scott Paper Company and International Paper combined to have one of the area’s largest workforces. However, the industry declined in the 1990, with International Paper closing its mill in 2000, and Kimberly-Clark closing its pulp mill in 1999.
International Paper, started in Albany, New York, opened its Mobile Kraft paper mill in 1929.
- IP closed the mill in 2000. Eight hundred workers lost some of the best-paying jobs available in the Mobile area as a result. Four years later, the vast majority of the former IP workers had found jobs, but most earned a fraction of what they had before.
- The Alabama State Port Authority purchased the International Paper mill for $1.6 million in 2005.
Kimberly-Clark’s Mobile paper mill employs 780 people and produces 700 tons of paper products daily. Mobile has one of the company’s three largest facilities in the business-to-business segment known as Kimberly-Clark Professional, and is a primary producer of commercial tissue products. Wood fiber is delivered by rail, since the pulp mill was closed in 1999. The 200-acre plant makes Scott and Kleenex brand toilet tissue and paper towels for commercial and industrial accounts
- Kimberly-Clark closed its pulp mill in Mobile in 1999, eliminating 450 jobs. The company also sold 500,000 acres of timberland that provided pulp for the mill. Kimberly-Clark officials linked the closing of the mill to a decision by the S. D. Warren Company, a paper maker, to buy more fiber from foreign mills. Kimberly-Clark also said the mill was hampered by high energy costs was outdated.
- 1939: Maine-based Hollingsworth & Whitney complete construction of its Mobile paper mill.
- 1954: Hollingsworth & Whitney merges with Scott Paper Co., founded in 1879 in Philadelphia
- 1994: Scott sells its S.D. Warren coated paper portion of the mill, and the energy complex is sold to SAPPI. 2001: SAPPI closes the Mobile mill.
- 1995: Scott Paper merges with Kimberly-Clark, founded in 1872 in Wisconsin. Headquartered in Dallas, Kimberly-Clark produces familiar brands such as Huggies, Kleenex, Depend and Kotex, holding the number 1 or number 2 position globally in most of its major consumer products categories.

Chemicals

The chemical industry is the region’s largest industry sector with more than 3,600 employees.
Degussa Corp. is the largest chemical company, followed by Ciba Specialty Chemicals, UOP, DuPont Agricultural Products, Olin Chemicals, Akzo Nobel, Syngenta, Arkema Inc., Ineos Phenols, US Amines, Occidental Chemicals, Praxair and Mitsubishi Polysilicon.
The Old Mobile site property is owned by four chemical corporations: Alabama Power, DuPont, Courtaulds, and Akzo-Nobel.
Evonik-Degussa’s chemical plant employs 680 on a 1,900-acre site in the Theodore Industrial Park. The plant was built in 1974. The Mobile plant is the largest among Degussa’s 80 U.S. factories, turning out such products as hydrogen peroxide for the paper and pulp industries, a binding agent used in more than 250 products from ketchup to paint, and a sealant for building products. Real estate and energy conglomerate Evonik Industries bought Degussa AG in 2007. – PR 2/2/08
- The Mobile plant saw its peak employment of 1,300 workers in 2002. A new $15 million biodiesel catalyst plant and a $10 million ROHACELL plant were announced in 2007. ROHACELL is a high-tech foam used in products as varied as airplane wings and the skis used by world-champion athletes. The biodiesel plant was not expected to add jobs, but the ROHACELL facility was expected to add 10 people to the workforce.
- The facility gives more than $100,000 each year to the arts, schools and charitable organizations.
- Evonik Degussa is considering a $65 million expansion at its Theodore complex to make methyl mercaptan for chicken feed. Evonik Degussa is currently expanding two other units in Theodore, including one that will make an ingredient for biodiesel. – PR 5/9/08
. Ciba’s McIntosh plant is the Swiss-based firm’s largest manufacturing operation. The plant was built in 1952.
- The entire site, along with nearby Tombigbee River swamps, is a federal Superfund area. – PR 1/6/07
- ADEM issued a consent order against Ciba and proposed a $20,000 fine for failure to monitor numerous pollution points in the first three months of 2004.
Azko was founded in the Netherlands in 1923 (as Organon); Akzo Nobel was formed in 1994 through Akzo’s acquisition of Nobel Industries; Akzo Nobel’s products are mainly industrial chemicals. Azko Nobel sold its pharmaceutical division to Schering Plough in 2007.
- Azko Nobel’s chemical plant in Axis makes primarily carbon disulfide.
- In 1998, Akzo Nobel acquired British fiber-manufacturer Courtaulds, combined the fibers divisions of both companies, and then demerged them as Acordis Ltd. At the time Courtalds had rayon and Tencel synthetic fiber plants in Axis. In 1999, Akzo Nobel sold Acordis to Corsadi BV, part of the international investment group CVC Capital Partners.
- In 2001 Acordis Cellulosic Fibers closed its Axis rayon manufacturing facility with its 324 jobs due to pressure from imported fabrics. In the 1990s the rayon plants was the biggest polluter in Mobile County and in Alabama, and was sixth in the nation.
- Acordis/CVC kept its Tencel facility in Axis, which was built in 1993. While rayon production produces large amounts of sulfurous waste, Tencel is made with a “closed loop” chemical process whereby the solvent can be filtered and reused.
- In 2004 Lenzing AG acquired Acordis’ Tencel plant in Axis from CVC. Lenzing AG, specializing in man-made fibers, is currently held by B & C Holding (an Austrian investment company), its majority owner.
- Lyocell is the generic term for fibers made of pulp (raw material – wood). The fibers are produced by means of a direct solvent process. With this particularly ecological technology (closed-loop cycle), cellulose, the natural raw material, is dissolved. The resulting spinning mass is then spun into fibers. Recently, Lyocell fibers have experienced major success in markets of the garment industry and also in the home textile and the nonwovens segments. Lenzing markets its Lyocell fibers under the brand name “Lyocell by Lenzing”, Tencel is the brand name for Lyocell fibers by the Tencel group. In the 1980’s of the last century, Lenzing AG, the viscose fiber manufacturer, and the former British company Courtaulds plc had each obtained a license from Akzo, a Dutch company, to further develop the Lyocell technology. In the 1990’s, both companies successfully launched their production of Lyocell fibers. After patent-law conflicts, Lenzing and Courtaulds signed a settlement in 1998, leading to a restricted exchange of know-how. The Lyocell fibers operations set up within the former Courtaulds Group, later Acordis, now Corsadi, subsequently underwent several changes of ownership, while developing as an autonomous business under the name of Tencel. Fiber produced at the Mobile plant was commonly used in Japan to weave or knit high-quality fabrics returned to the USA for use in high-fashion garments. Today, most Tencel fiber imported into Japan goes into the domestic consumer market. Fiber supplied to Taiwan and Korea is used for fabrics re-exported to the USA and Europe
- In 2000, the Alabama Supreme Court threw out a $1 million verdict won by Horace “Buddy” Long and his wife, Margaret, who sued Courtalds over the release of millions of pounds of carbon disulfide which they claimed caused the death of their six horses and caused their Creola property to depreciate. – PR 9/16/2000
- Twenty-five current and former employees sued Courtaulds PLC for $50 million claiming exposure to dangerously high levels of carbon disulfide, a chemical Courtaulds uses in the manufacture of rayon.
- Some workers at Courtaulds Fibers’ rayon plant in north Mobile County show signs that exposure to an industrial chemical has harmed their health, according to the head of environmental medicine at Emory University. Emory has tested 28 Courtaulds employees and found that most of them suffer from memory loss, personality changes, heart problems, vision problems or other disorders that can be associated with exposure to carbon disulfide.
Dupont acquired its plant north of Axis in 1986 (it was originally built for Shell chemical in 1968). The DuPont Mobile Manufacturing Center primarily produces crop protection chemicals for use in agricultural applications.
Phenolchemie’s 400KT phenol and acetone plant in the Theodore Industrial area was completed in 2000. Ineos Phenol bought the plant in 2001 from Phenolchemie, a division of Veba AG, which also was majority owner of Degussa. Ineos is a privately owned British chemicals company, and the third largest in the world (after BASF and Dow Chemical). It has factories in Germany, Belgium, and Mobile.
In 2006, Helsinki-based Kemira Group purchased Cytec Industries’ water treatment chemical business, with its 100 worker plant in Mobile County. Cytec Industries was founded in 1993 as a spin-off from a larger company, American Cyanamid. The Mobile plant has been here since the early 1940s.

Oil and Gas

Companies with oil and gas operations in Mobile county include Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Duke Energy Field Services, and Denbury Resources
Houston-based Gulf Coast Asphalt operates a storage terminal on the east bank of the Mobile River that is used to distribute a variety of petroleum products. It is proposing construction of a $36 million biodiesel plant on its 67-acre site at Blakeley Island. The IDB approved a $1.6 million package of tax breaks. The plant would create up to 50 permanent jobs at an average salary of about $50,000 and have the capacity to produce about 120 million gallons of biodiesel annually from a variety of sources, including palm, cottonseed, coconut and soybean oils. The plant would be roughly 10 times larger than a $33 million biodiesel plant being constructed in Chickasaw by Dunhill Terminals LP.
Area pipelines include Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation, Gulfstream Natural Gas System (which runs to South Florida)
MoBay Storage Hub Inc., a subsidiary of Houston-based Falcon Gas Storage, plans to build 50 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage in south Mobile County near Bayou La Batre and Coden. It will complete the $250 million storage facility by hurricane season 2008. The MoBay project is a conversion of the company’s nearly depleted gas field in the Mississippi Sound.

Mobile area Refineries:

Saraland Refinery (Shell Oil, 400 Industrial Parkway Saraland, 80,000 bpd).
- The original facility was built and operated by Louisiana Land & Exploration Company, starting in 1975 with a single crude unit and reformer. The site is 914 acres, of which 125 are developed. Shell Chemicals bought the facility in 1996.
- Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson investigated pricing practices at Shell Oil Co.’s refinery in Saraland in 2005 when gas from the Shell refinery in Saraland cost independent stations up to 70 cents more per gallon than it cost Shell retail stations.
Mobile Refinery (Gulf Atlantic Operations, Chickasaw, 16,700 bpd, asphalt).
- Corpus Christi-based Gulf Atlantic Operations LLC (GAO) bought the assets, including the refinery, of Trigeant in March 2005. GAO formed under the name Tripso LLC in February 2005. El Paso Corporation sold the Chickasaw refinery to Trigeant EP Ltd, in August 2003.
- GAO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2006. The filing states that Hurricane Emily struck the Mexican coast in 2005, disrupting the delivery of cured oil from that country’s state-owned petroleum company. Then Hurricane Katrina flooded parts of the Gulf Atlantic refinery and terminals in the Mobile area. Gulf Atlantic said in its bankruptcy filings that it has made most of the repairs to its facilities. But it said the company has exhausted its lines of credit, falling behind on payment to many of the service and repair companies that performed the work. Gulf Atlantic also said it fell behind on payments to vendors. As a result, over 20 lawsuits were filed against GAO in the months leading up to this bankruptcy. As the company tried to repair its facilities, it began relying on “tolling” agreements in which it processed crude oil on behalf of third parties for a processing fee or a split of the proceeds. When insurance claims were denied, GAO turned to oil speculation, according to bankruptcy records, but “the oil trading venture was short-lived and did not generate profit.” – PR 11/15/06
The Theodore Refinery on Range Line Road has been closed since 1988. Originally built in 1967 to manufacture military fuel, jet fuel and marine fuel. Estimated capacity 28,000 barrels/day. It was formerly owned by Marion Oil Co. and GAMXX Energy, and by Alexander-Allen Inc., a Pennsylvania company, which owned the plant after it closed. The GAMXX oil storage tanks at the old Seabury Station in Kushla once held crude oil and now stand with their tops open and accessible.

Aerospace

The aviation/aerospace industry is a growing industry sector in the area. The Brookley Complex is a 1,700-acre industrial area with two runways, one long enough to land the Space Shuttle.
Singapore Technology’s Mobile Aerospace Engineering (ST/MAE) performs heavy maintenance on airliners and large cargo jets, and transforms passenger airliners into cargo planes. Two massive hangars accommodate Boeing 747s.
- Mobile Aerospace Engineering (MAE), founded at Brookley in 1991, is Mobile’s largest privately owned manufacturing employer with 1,200 employees. Memphis-based FedEx is one of its top customers for aircraft maintenance.
Teledyne Continental Motors in Mobile has 450 employees. Teledyne Continental Motors developed and built the engines that powered the first round-the-world flight of the Voyager at Brookley.
EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company), the parent company of Airbus, built an Airbus Center of Excellence in 2006, creating 200 high-paying engineering jobs.
Northrop Grumman and EADS North America selected Mobile as the site of its KC-30 Production Center for the $40 billion contract to provide 179 aerial refueling tankers to the US Air Force, which it won in February 2008. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor with EADS as its principle subcontractor.
- Boeing Co. formally protested the award to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO upheld Boeings protest and recommended a new competition in a decision released June 18. The GAO has no authority to enforce its recommendations, but its opinions are taken into count in Congress. By law, the Air Force had 60 days to respond to GAO.
- The award was rescinded by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who ordered a new contest after the GAO review. The Pentagon issued a revised request for bids and set an early October deadline for Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. to turn in fresh proposals.– PR 8/8/08
  - Gates is pushing to settle the contest by year’s end to beat the Jan. 20 deadline when a new Presidential administration will take office
  - Boeing supporters took a dim view of the Pentagon’s new ground rules for the Air Force tanker competition, as industry observers said that the company could face long odds. Boeing’s prospects “may have been dashed” by the new criteria, veteran aerospace reporter James Wallace wrote for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Analysts tended to agree, saying the draft requirements appear to favor the newer, larger plane offered by Northrop and EADS North America.
  - U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called Gates’ proposed timeline “unrealistic,” and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., called for political intervention. “It’s time for Congress to exert greater control of this process,” Dicks said.
  - Boeing Co. said it is inclined to bail out of its effort to win a $40 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force unless the Pentagon agrees to give it a total of six months to submit a new bid. – Wall Street Journal, 8/22/08
- More than 1,150 jobs and a $600 million investment are expected to made in the assembly plant, with a potential $20 billion impact.
- In 2004, Boeing had almost won the tanker contract through an unusual leasing arrangement with the Air Force. But Congressional scrutiny of the financial deal, led by Senator John McCain of Arizona, caused it to be scuttled. The greater oversight uncovered a conflict of interest scandal that led to the jailing of Boeing’s former chief financial officer and a former top Air Force official. Those events opened the door for EADS to become a competitor. – NYT 6/19/2007
- Airbus announced plans to assemble commercial jets in Mobile, contingent on winning the tanker contract. It would be the first American production site for Airbus, which currently assembles all its planes in Europe. The company has struggled financially because of the euro’s rise against the dollar.
- The $175 million A330 freighter, a cargo version of its A330-200 jet, was introduced in 2007 and Airbus already has received 66 orders, doubling the total of Boeing’s 767-300 freighter, its closest competitor.
- Airbus tentatively plans to break ground on its facility in the fourth quarter of this year and begin producing A330-200 freighters within two years. Airbus will manufacture the initial freighters in Toulouse while the Mobile plant is constructed. The first Alabama-made freighter should roll down the Brookley runway in 2011, and Mobile will become the sole site of A330 freighter production by 2013. – PR 4/27/08
- The Mobile County Commission and supporters of EADS created the website www.keepourtanker.com. U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. And other legislators from Boeing bases in Kansas and Washington, created a website opposing the contract.
  - Tiahrt is pushing an amendment to the Iraq war funding bill that would prohibit the Pentagon from contracting with any foreign company that receives government subsidies and has litigation pending before the World Trade Organization.
  - Boeing planned to assemble its tankers in Everett, Wash., and modify them for military use in Wichita, Kan., supporting thousands of jobs in the two states and 44,000 nationwide. Los Angeles-based Northrop plans to assemble and modify its tankers in Mobile, creating 1,500 local jobs and 48,000 nationwide.
  - The Northrop-EADS plane is 60 percent American made; Chicago-based Boeing promised an 85 percent American-made plane. – Seattle P-I, 3/3/08
  - The Alabama delegation points out that a pair of KC-767 tankers that Boeing delivered earlier this year to Japan were delivered over a year late and are still not certified for use by Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. Its KC-767 tankers on order for the Italian Air Force have not been delivered and are now almost four years late.
  - Northrop Grumman’s website: www.americasnewtanker.com
  - Mobile-based Alabamians to Build American Tankers went on the offensive by airing three radio ads in the Washington, D.C. area highly critical of Boeing. Northrop has distanced itself from the group’s activities, while analyst Scott Hamilton has labeled the ads on his blog as “a new low” in the tanker competition. President Bryan Lee is a Mobile firefighter, and others involved in the nonprofit group who have been identified publicly include attorney/lobbyist Palmer Hamilton, real estate developer Paul Wesch, and accountant Mike Thompson. The campaign was designed by Mobile’s Strategy Public Relations – PR 8/7/08
    - ABAT Radio Ad 1 Radio Ad 2&3
- The House and Senate Armed Services Committees and Appropriation Committees all have potential leverage to affect the tanker contract
  - U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee which has direct oversight of the defense spending bill, has been ill for much of the past year, and has at times ceded authority to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray is a leading supporter of Boeing and a harsh critic of the Air Force’s decision to award the tanker contract to -Northrop. – PR 4/18/08
  - The House Armed Services Committee‘s top Republican, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, is a leading “Buy American” critic of the tanker deal. – PR 5/8/08
  - U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the contract should be allowed to go forward, pending a review by the Government Accountability Office. – PR 4/22/08
  - U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., expressed disappointment that Boeing Co. was not selected for the deal. Obama said it was hard for him to believe “that having an American company that has been a traditional source of aeronautic excellence would not have done this job.” – PR 3/3/08
  - U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile put a “hold” on a bill sponsored by U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both Republicans from Kansas that would bar the military from spending any money on the tanker contract unless it either gives the work to Boeing or else holds a new competition under conditions in favor of Boeing. Under informal Senate procedures, one lawmaker can keep a bill from moving forward indefinitely. Although colleagues can theoretically attempt an override, such steps are rare in practice. U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., sponsored a similar bill in the House. – PR 6/28/08
  - A Department of Defense spokesman refuted an online report suggesting that senior Pentagon and Air Force officials were ready to go ahead and award the tanker contract to Northrop despite the GAO recommendation. The online trade publication DefenseTech.org, citing unnamed sources, said John Young, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, was drafting a letter to Congress defending the Air Force’s selection. A spokesman for Young’s office called the report a “total fabrication.” – PR 6/28/08
  - Via the parliamentary procedure known as a “hold,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is blocking Senate confirmation of Michael Donley as the next Air Force secretary – PR 8/7/08

Maritime Services

Maritime services include barge fleeting service, container repair and leasing, dunnage services, freight forwarding, guard service and ship watching, heavy lift and salvage, industrial diving, line handling, marine fumigation services, maritime waste disposal, ship chandlers, stevedoring, towing and many more.
- Five barge fleeting service companies serve Mobile, including Able Marine Service Inc., Delta Marine Service, National Marine Inc. and Cooper Marine & Timberlands; 17 foreign freight forwarders, nine of them custom house brokers; and 13 barge lines/towing companies, the largest ones being Parker Towing Co., Seabulk Towing, Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co. and Waterways Towing & Offshore Services Inc.
- There are five shipbuilding and/or repair facilities along the Port of Mobile, including Atlantic Marine, Bender Shipbuilding, C&G Boatworks, Harrison Brothers Dry Dock & Repair Yard and Austal USA. These and Steiner Shipyard and World Wide Marine Service, employ a combined workforce that exceeds 2,100.
- The Theodore Ship Channel is host to several other service facilities. It is well suited to the oil and gas industry, as it is the closest deep water location to the open Gulf, and is home to Aker Kvaerner Subsea and Technip Coflexip.
- Two decades ago, Bayou la Batre was known as the “Detroit of shrimp trawlers.” Today, most Mobile County shipyards are making vessels for use in the Gulf’s oil and gas fields. As offshore drilling increases, Mobile shipbuilders are building offshore supply and rig-tending vessels and repairing rigs at facilities on the Mobile River.
In 2001 Austal USA began as a partnership between Bender Shipbuilding and the Australian company Austal to build aluminum high-speed passenger ferries. It employs over 11150 workers. In 2006 Bender sold its 30 percent stake in Austal USA to Austal for $20 million
- Austal builds high-speed catamaran ferry ships for passengers and autos.
- In August 2008, Austal broke ground on a $245 million, 1,200-job, 700,000-square-foot modular manufacturing facility. Austal bought more than 100 acres from neighbor Atlantic Marine Holding Co. The U.S. Navy plans to contribute up to $33 million to the facility. The construction is expected to be complete in about 12 months. A second phase — a “mirror image” of the first — would complete the $200 million expansion by 2011. – PR 9/13/07, 12/12/07, PR 12/21/07, 8/1/08
- Austal USA broke ground in 2005 on its $25 million expansion to build Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) for the U.S. Navy.
  - The Navy awarded its $223 million contract for the first of two planned “Flight O” vessels to prime contractor Bath Iron Works, a General Dynamics company that teamed with Austal USA as the designer and builder of the LCS.
  - Austal and General Dymanics were vying with a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. for an opportunity to build 55 of the vessels. Each contractor was to build two ships before the Navy made its decision in 2010. Cost overruns on what was supposed to be a $220 million vessel plagued both teams, and Lockheed’s contract for its second ship was canceled in April, and General Dynamics in November 2007. Each team now has only one ship in production, with both slated for delivery next year. The Navy plans to try out the two vessels in an “operational assessment” in early 2009, which could lead to a decision on future purchases.
  - The first of the General Dynamics/Austal vessels is about 80 percent complete, and is now slated for delivery in late 2008. But the ship’s expected cost is $507 million, much higher than its $223 million contract price. – PR 9/12/07, 2/7/08, 8/1/08
  - The Navy announced the cancellation of the second LCS in November 2007 after it could not reach a deal with the General Dynamics/Austal team on reworking the LCS contract to contain rising costs. Despite the cancellation, Austal USA foresees no impact on its work force for the next nine to 12 months. – PR 11/3/07
  - The Navy now plans to award a contract for a third LCS this August with two more buys next year via a competition limited to General Dynamics and Lockheed. Of the three vessels the Navy wants to build, Congress has so far approved money for only one. The Navy’s request to fund the other two is still under review on Capitol Hill; a final decision may not come until this fall. – PR 2/7/08, 4/3/08
- Austal USA has won a $3 million preliminary design contract for the Joint High Speed Vessel. The Joint High Speed Vessel program would call for military passenger and vehicle ferries. Austal has submitted a bid to build 10 of the vessels – PR 7/4/2007, 2/1/08, 8/1/08
- Austal has completed one Hawaii Superferry, the Alakai, and a second is under construction.
- The National Labor Relations Board ruled that Austal broke federal labor laws in alleged actions linked to a failed 2002 union vote. Union officials said that Austal fired 10 employees because of union activities and threatened to fire all who signed the cards, or to fire everyone if a union succeeded. Austal workers voted against unionization again in 2008 – PR 6/13/2007, 4/10/08
- Austal was promised $10 million in city, county and state funds to help pay for a $20 million shed, contingent on creating 600 new jobs. Austal is now building toward the 1,200 employee mark that would earn it another $5 million from the state.
- Austal Built Ships
Signal International is a marine construction firm that builds and repairs ships and offshore oil rigs that plans to move its corporate office from Pascagoula to the RSA Battle House Tower in Mobile. The company employs about 3,000 people in in its six shipyards, two in Pascagoula and four in the Port Arthur and Orange, Texas, areas. The company’s sales are in the $500 million range. - PR
- RSA bought about $100 million worth of shares in the $240 million company in 2008. RSA was approached about the purchase by Washington, D.C.-based ACON Investments, a private investment firm which bought Signal in 2003, and retains a minority ownership position. – PR

Steel and Materials

ThyssenKrupp, a German steelmaker, plans to build a $4.5 billion, 2,700-worker steel processing facility in north Mobile County off U.S. 43 near Calvert .
- The ThyssenKrupp facility, expected to be operational by 2010, will manufacture and process carbon and stainless steel for high-end manufacturers, chief among them the South’s automotive assembly industry. The raw steel used in Mobile will be produced at a mill in Brazil. Stainless operations at the Calvert plant are on schedule to start in late 2009, followed by carbon steel work in early 2010.
- Construction permits were approved by state and federal regulators and site preparation should be completed by early next year. The project will employ 29,000 construction workers over the next 18 months.
- The state’s $811 billion incentive package for ThyssenKrupp was approved by voters in a statewide election June 2007.
  - ThyssenKrupp AG will have to employ 2,000 people for two years to receive the entire incentives package.
  - The incentives package includes $461 million in upfront payment, with $314 million going to the company in cash, $67 million toward training, $45 million toward land purchase and $25 million in road building.
  - State and local governments promised $350 million in tax breaks.
  - Those figures don’t include an estimated $115 million that the Alabama State Port Authority will spend to build a facility on Pinto Island.
  - The figures also don’t include a state corporate income tax credit that effectively frees the company from state income taxes for its first three decades of operation.
  - The Mobile City Council voted unanimously to commit $33.5 million cash to the deal.
  - The Mobile County Commission also approved a total payment is $83.5 million. The commission promised that $70 million would come directly from its Pay-As-You-Go roadbuilding fund.
  - Of its $83.5 million, the county will get back about $45 million through the state transportation department paying to widen and expand Schillinger Road.
  - The Industrial Development Authority of Mobile County approved a 20-year package of tax breaks, which includes a break on non-educational property and sales taxes worth an estimated $178 million in its first year, though officials said that figure would depreciate. J. Gary Cooper pegged an estimate of the county package’s full value over 20 years it at more than $3 billion. At that amount, the package would average about $105 million annually.
  - A consortium of other area city and county governments has met to consider sharing a portion of that amount — estimates range from $13.5 million to $20 million, but none of those governments have formally agreed to any payments. For the remaining $13.5 million, the county and state are trying to put together a regional economic development authority comprised of city and county governments in southwest Alabama.
  - The agreement also includes a provision that appears to be a commitment from state government to never seek the kinds of legislation that have been proposed elsewhere to deal with global warming: “In the event that state legislation is introduced that adds a new tax on energy, (carbon dioxide) or the use of electricity, natural gas, coal or industrial gases, the state shall use its best efforts to (1) defeat such legislation or (2) seek an amendment to such legislation providing the company an exemption therefrom.”
  - According to the Deravi study, state and local governments will reap $1.4 billion in tax revenues over 30 years, breaking even on the $461 million in state and local cash incentives by 2020, after 10 years of operation, and recouping all the property, income and utility tax breaks by 2030.
  - School property taxes, where no breaks have been granted, are projected to bring in $218 million for the state, Mobile County and Washington County over 30 years.
  - The $811 million incentive is over $300,000 per job (compared to the $167,000 per job initially given Mercedes in 1993) – James Cobb, PR 6/17/2007
  - Incentives Graph (PR)
  - The ThyssenKrupp steel mill will increase the level of economic activity in Alabama by $965 million a year, creating a total of 7,000 direct and indirect jobs when according to a study by the Alabama Development Office and Keivan Deravi, an economist at Auburn University Montgomery. – PR 5/27/07
    - Alabama’s total economic output was worth $134 billion in 2005, meaning the mill will add about 0.7 percent to the state’s economy.
    - Beyond the 2,700 employees of ThyssenKrupp, spending from the mill is projected to create 4,300 indirect employees. ThyssenKrupp employees will make an average of $41,900 a year. The $41,900 salary for ThyssenKrupp employees is lower than the $50,000 to $65,000 range discussed by local economic development officials.
    - Southwest Alabama can expect about $3.7 million a year in extra tax revenue from ThyssenKrupp, including $1.5 million a year to Mobile County and $1.35 million for the city of Mobile, according to the study by University of South Alabama economics professor Semoon Chang. Most direct taxes on the company itself have been waived, so Chang looked at the impact on sales tax, gasoline tax, property tax and automobile tax. – PR 8/14/07
    - City and county governments in Baldwin, Clarke, Escambia and Washington counties will receive about $850,000 combined
    - The Mobile County school system will get about $22.5 million a year from property taxes when the plant becomes operational in 2010 because education taxes were not abated.
    - Alabama State Port Authority will build a terminal on the south tip of Pinto Island where crude steel slabs will be loaded onto barges for a ride 45 miles upriver to the plant site. With a projected cost of at least $115 million, the terminal will itself create 50 to 60 new permanent jobs at the port when it reaches full operating capacity in 2010. The Port Authority purchased 87 acres from Atlantic Marine Inc. for $8.5 million for the project.
    - Land speculators started buying chunks of land in Washington County within days of the steelmaker’s announcement. Raw land cost in Washington County averages $1,000 to $1,200 per acre, while in Mobile County the land along U.S. 43 averages $4,000 per acre. Tensaw Land and Timber Co. probably owns the majority of the land around the steel mill site — 25,000 to 30,000 acres, according to Riley Boykin Smith, president of the company. ThyssenKrupp will build its plant on about 3,700 acres owned by Tensaw and Dow Badische, a chemical company. Smith said he and family members are considering opening trailer parks on some of Tensaw’s land during the plant construction.
    - U.S. Steel Corp., who has a steelmaking complex in Fairfield near Birmingham, lobbied against the state’s courtship of ThyssenKrupp AG.
    - ThyssenKrupp Site Graphic
    - See here for environmental concerns about the ThyssenKrupp plant
SSAB has a 370-worker steel mill on U.S. 43 in Axis in north Mobile County. The $470 million plant began producing steel plate and coil for the domestic market in 2001 for IPSCO. The Axis mill can make 1.4 billion tons of steel plate and coil per year. In 2007, Illinois-based IPSCO was purchased by the Swedish steel company Svenskt Stal AB.
Berg Steel Pipe Corp. has chosen Mobile as the site for a new $75 million steel pipe manufacturing facility that will employ about 100 people. The IDB approved a $5 million package of tax incentives. Large oil and gas transmission companies — The Williams Cos. Inc., BP PLC, Duke Energy Corp., El Paso Corp. and TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. — will be the main customers of the large-diameter (or spiral) pipe. It is scheduled to open in September 2008.
Holcim (US) Inc, a subsidiary of the Swiss cement giant Holcim Ltd., received a waiver on sales and use taxes and a five-year abatement on property taxes collectively worth $1.4 million tied to a proposed $60 million expansion of its 156-worker cement production plant in Theodore.
GAF building and roofing materials plant has operated at Emogene and Florida Streets for several decades. It is a former EPA superfund site – Lagniappe, 6/5/07
Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company, was an engineering and construction firm with operations in Mobile. In 1953 Brown & Root built Ciba-Geigy chemical plant at McIntosh.
The auto industry plants in Alabama have resulted in over 2,000 new jobs created in Mobile.
ALCOA’s bauxite refining plant in Mobile was constructed in 1937. At the time, it was the largest bauxite refining plant in the United States. The company discontinued its Mobile operations in 1982.

Technology

Technology firms located in Mobile include Mentor Graphics, Chapura, CentraLite and Xanté Corp, with more than 6,000 technology jobs in the area.
- Mentor Graphics is the anchor tenant at the University of South Alabama’s Technology and Research Park and specializes in embedded operating systems and application development tools. The company was founded in 1990 by a graduate of the University of South Alabama. Oregon-based Mentor Graphics bought Mobile’s Accelerated Technology.
- Chapura Inc. develops software that synchronizes data between PDAs and desktop computers. Its former president has moved home to Georgia, one of its founders has become a real estate developer, and its 10,000-square-foot building in Executive Park is for sale. Chapura’s business was built on a single product line, PocketMirror, software that synchronizes Microsoft Outlook with Palm Pilot PDAs. PocketMirror was released in 1997, and Chapura signed an agreement to bundle PocketMirror with Palm in March 1998. Chapura earned royalties for each device sold, and the company, first based in Jim Chappelle’s home, grew exponentially. Besides Palm devices, PocketMirror was also bundled with devices sold by Handspring, IBM, Samsung, Fossil and Kyocera. In 2003 Palm decided it would no longer use Chapura’s software. Royalties dried up, and Chapura was forced to trim its staff. The company’s staff of about 10 is a third of what it used to be. Chapura reports it enjoyed a profitable 2006 from direct sales. Its estimated annual revenue is around $2 million.
- CentralLite System’s innovative automatic lighting systems meet consumer needs and offers artistic beauty in lighting. Xanté develops products that enable the highest quality printing solutions for its clients.
- STI, a Mobile-based education data management company, provides software to help K-12 schools keep track of things like attendance, scheduling, grades, discipline and money. It is scheduled to relocate its headquarters and 150 employees to the University of South Alabama Technology and Research Park. – PR 8/17/07
The healthcare information technology sector is well represented in Mobile, with firms such as TeleVox Software, The SSI Group, CPSI, and Digidyne, accounting for more than 1,400 employees.
- Mobile-based Computer Programs and Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CPSI) specializes in health care information systems for small and medium-sized hospitals nationwide. Most of CPSI’s 600 client hospitals have 100 beds or fewer. It has more than 850 employees at its headquarters off Hillcrest Road in west Mobile. CPSI had annual revenue of $115.9 million in 2006.
  - CPSI owners include Palisade Capital Management, L.L.C (8%), Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management, LLC (8%), Century Capital Management LLC (7%), Neuberger Berman Inc. (5%), M. Kenny Muscat (5%), John Morrissey (3%).
- SSI’s client base exceeds 2,200 and includes hospitals, doctors, HMOs and insurance carriers. Founded in 1988, SSI has about 370 employees . Its headquarters are on Morrison Drive in west Mobile. Its annual revenue is around $40 million, said Jimmy Lyons, chief financial officer. Sold under the trademark ClickON, SSI software handles claims processing and data networking for its medical clients. Bobby Smith is SSI’s president and chief executive officer. – PR 12/6/07
  - SSI has forged an alliance with Pittsburgh-based The Bank of New York Mellon which will allow Mellon’s health care clients to use SSI products and give SSI clients access to Mellon’s “full suite of treasury services” geared toward the health care industry.
  - In 2007, SSI was among trade publication Healthcare Informatics’ top 100 health care product and service providers, coming in this year at No. 61 based on 2006 annual revenue of $37 million. That’s down from $41 million in 2005.
  - Smith said the health care IT market is moving from licensing software — where the client pays a single fee upon signing a contract — to paying on a per-claim basis. Software license fees would range from around $10,000 to $50,000, and the revenue was recognized immediately, he said. Now, with claims going through SSI’s clearinghouse, the revenue is not recognized immediately.
- TeleVox developed software for computer-generated reminder calls for a doctor, dentist or orthodontist appointments. It was founded in 1992 by Neil Armentrout and his wife Fran Smith, and was sold to West Corp. of Omaha, Neb. in 2007. As of March 2007, it had 250 employees – all but 25 are in Mobile. Before launching TeleVox, Armentrout was an executive with QMS and left to start Condé Systems with David Gross.
The University of South Alabama Research Park opened in 2003.
- In early 2006, Mentor Graphics’ facilities accounted for nearly all of USA’s research park. The park is now about 300,000 square feet, 80 percent of which is occupied

Food and Seafood

Mobile’s seafood industry rose waned almost to the point of extinction in the last quarter of the 20th century.
- An updated economic impact study of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, funded by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, was presented with estimates that the Alabama Seafood Industry will suffer more than a $112 million loss.
Marshall Biscuits, Sara Lee, and others have production facilities
In its facility near Mobile, McNeil Nutritionals (a division of McNeil-PPC, Inc.) produces the world’s supply of Splenda No Calorie Sweetener for consumer use.

Service Industries

Banking and Finance

Mobile lags the state average in the percentage of finance, insurance, and real estate jobs.
The Mobile Bay area’s largest banks are: Regions Bank (Birmingham; in 2006 merged with AmSouth – also from Birmingham), RBC Centura (North Carolina, purchased Alabama National Bancorporation, including First Gulf Bank), BBVA Compass Bank (Birmingham, acquired by Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA for $9.6 billion in 2007), Wachovia Bank (Charlotte, NC, merged with Birmingham-based SouthTrust in 2004), BankTrust (Mobile), Colonial Bank (Montgomery), and Whitney National Bank (New Orleans) – PR5/27/07
- First National Bank was the oldest bank in Mobile; American National was slightly newer. American National became AmSouth in 1970s and brought in First National in 1985, divesting branches which became BankTrust.
- Merchants National Bank became First Alabama when it went statewide and Regions when it expanded out of Alabama; Regions merged with AmSouth in late 2006.
- Following the 2006 $10 billion merger of Regions and AmSouthBancorp, the two Birmingham-based banks were forced by federal regulators to divest a total of 52 branches. In Mobile the merged banks commanded about 61 percent of the deposit market. Regions has 46 branches in the Mobile area.
- RBC Centura acquired 22 Mobile-area AmSouth branches, and announced it would make Mobile its state headquarters. RBC became Mobile’s No. 2 bank with nearly $1 billion in deposits. Raleigh, N.C.-based RBC Centura’s parent is Royal Bank of Canada.
- RBC Centura agreed to acquire Birmingham-based Alabama National Bancorp. in a deal valued at $1.6 billion. The deal includes subsidiary First Gulf Bank NA, which has eight branches in Baldwin County and four in Escambia County, Fla. Holding almost 13 percent of the deposits, First Gulf is Baldwin County’s second-largest bank.
- 2007 Alabama & Mobile/Baldwin Bank Statistics (Press-Register Graphic)
BancTrust: (Nasdaq: BTFG)
- In 1985 the Mobile National Corporation holding company and its subsidiary, The Bank of Mobile, opened for business in 1986. The Main Office was located in downtown Mobile, along with a full service Trust Department and one branch location in West Mobile. Total Assets at the time were $9.5 million.
- In 1993 Mobile National Corporation merged with South Alabama Bancorporation (parent company of First National Bank, Brewton) and adopted the name South Alabama Bancorporation. Both banks retained their local identity, management, and board of directors. The Monroe County Bank joined in 1996, followed by The Commercial Bank of Demopolis in 1998. Also in 1998 the Bank of Mobile changed its name to South Alabama Bank.
- In 2002, the bank changed its name to BankTrust and the holding company’s name changed to BancTrust Financial Group, Inc.
- In 2003 CommerceSouth, Inc. was acquired. Total assets were approximately $1.1 billion.
- In 2006 a team of former Regions bankers in Mobile joined BancTrust just before its merger with AmSouth.
- In 2007 BancTrust Financial Group Inc. announced that it would merge with Selma-based The Peoples BancTrust Co. Inc. in a $143 million deal, which will bring the combined total of branches to 54 throughout Alabama and Florida and about $2.3 billion in assets. BankTrust has branches under construction in Fairhope and Tillman’s Corner, and CEO W. Bibb Lamar Jr. said expansion plans will be unaffected by the merger. As of 2007 it had about 5% of the Mobile market. BancTrust tried in 2000 to join with Peoples in a “merger of equals,” but that deal fell through. – PR 5/27/07, 10/12/07
- Banktrust net income for 2007 dropped by more than half, from $13.3 million in 2006 to $6.2 million.
- BancTrust Website
- BancTrust Board of Directors
- BancTrust Beneficial Owners and Past Directors
- South Alabama Beneficial Owners 1996
Commonwealth National Bank is a minority-owned bank with branches in Toulminville, Crichton and Prichard.
Woodlands Financials, a South Carolina investment group, purchased Gulf Federal Bank in 2007. Gulf Federal, which has two offices in Mobile, will remain a thrift, but will no longer be minority-owned. The investment group did not operate any retail offices before it acquired Gulf Federal. In addition to the two current branches — one on Broad Street and one in Eight Mile — two more branches will be opened in Mobile, one downtown and another on Government Boulevard. – PR1/26/07
Hancock Bank, based in Gulfport, Miss., opened its downtown branch and headquarters on the ground floor of St. Emanuel Place on Dauphin Street in 2007. The bank aims to build four to six branches in the Mobile area by the end of 2007, and eight to 10 in the next few years.
New Horizons Credit Union, formerly Scott Credit Union, has five branches and aims to finish a sixth by the end of the year. The smaller Azalea City Credit Union has two branches, but recently changed its charter to expand northward in Mobile and Washington counties as the area grows.
Bay Bank based in Mobile plans a two-story, 10,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar branch on Airport Boulevard in west Mobile according to Charles Ruffin, president and chief executive officer. Bay Bank has three smaller locations in Theodore, Dauphin Island and Dauphin Island Parkway.
Century Bank, headquartered in Lucedale, Miss. came into Mobile in 2002, when it merged with Mobile County Bank, a former branch of the old First National.
BancorpSouth, based in Tupelo, Miss., is opening branches in Mobile & Baldwin counties.
First Community Bank
Mobile Area Banks (from Business View, 9/2007)

Retail

In retailing, Birmingham-based Saks Inc. has both Parisian and McRae’s stores in Mobile.
- Bruno’s operates eight Bruno’s and nine Food World grocery stores in the Mobile metro area. Bruno’s, although based in Birmingham, is owned by Lone Star Funds, a private equity firm (and was previously owned by Ahold and KKR).
- Gayfers, Hammel’s, Kayser’s, Kress, Reiss Brothers are all downtown stores that have gone out of business

Other service

Six call centers call the Mobile Bay region their home, including Hertz Corp, NCO Financial Systems, and Sears Home Central
Engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root closed its Mobile operations in 2004 after 22 years, leaving 140 employees out of work. The Mobile County school board is thinking about leasing the old Kellogg Brown & Root office building at 2970 Cottage Hill Road.
Tourism employed about 30,800 people in the Mobile MSA and earnings (both direct and indirect) amounted to almost $837 million with 2.5 million visitors.

Industrial Sites

Theodore Industrial Park
- The idea for the Theodore Industrial Park came from the administrators of the State Docks in the early 1960s, when they looked at the abandoned federal military property, the Theodore Ammunition Depot, as a site for new industry. The State Docks had run out of room to expand along the downtown waterfront. In 1965, at a meeting of the Industrial Development Board of the City of Mobile, the director of the State Docks and the Board agreed to buy the Depot. The City IDB used tax-exempt industrial development bonds to buy the land for the Theodore Industrial Park.
- Degussa established the first chemical plant in Theodore in the 1970s and remained one of the only industries in the park until 1990. By 1996, Degussa had expanded its operations and established joint ventures with two other chemical manufacturers that built new production facilities in the park. They were soon joined by a host of smaller firms and refineries.
- This phase of industrial expansion followed a decade of real estate development in the Fowl River area to the east of the plants, setting the stage for land use conflicts between industry and the area’s upper-middle-class residents. By the mid-1990s, what had once been a wild area of estuaries and bayous dotted by expensive homes had acquired a distinctly industrial skyline of smokestacks and storage tanks. – Moberg
LeMoyne/Mobile River Industrial Park
- Axis is a rural unincorporated area located 20 miles north of Mobile. Since the early 1950s, Axis has become the largest site of chemical manufacturing in the state and one of the largest in the Southeast.

Sources:

Mobile Chamber of Commerce: Business View, AN ECONOMIC OVERVIEW OF THE MOBILE BAY REGION

University of South Alabama Mitchell College of Business Center for Real Estate Studies

Competitive Strategies Group September 2005 Report