A Wonderful Success Story : Fast thinking and hard work save 1,200 jobs in Orange County

The public and private sectors have managed to put together an artful eleventh-hour deal in Orange County that will keep TRW Inc.’s credit reporting division in Southern California, and with it 1,200 jobs that had appeared headed for Dallas, Cleveland or Denver. There is no mystery to this success story, but there are lessons for a region that increasingly has felt the “grass-is-greener” tremors.

Local government officials and real estate leaders recognized the importance of assembling a package attractive enough to curtail TRW’s wanderlust. The company had sounded some very public and now-familiar complaints about excessive regulation and the cost of doing business in California. The stakes were high: A major commercial center in Orange would have been devastated by the loss of its largest tenant.

This deal comes at a time when many businesses are grumbling loudly about the problems of operating in Southern California. This week, a departing manager of one prominent business--the Lakers’ coach--felt compelled to address the area’s hurt by saying his sudden move to Milwaukee had nothing to do with social unrest.

With the region nursing tender hope of recovery from the rioting, the timing and smart execution of the TRW deal ought to be instructive. It may also inspire cities rallying to keep jobs, as is the case in San Diego, where a General Dynamics missile manufacturing operation has been sold to Hughes Aircraft--which is now considering taking those 4,500 jobs elsewhere.

In the TRW agreement, business leaders and even rival politicians--some bearing wounds from a bitter Assembly race--worked toward a common goal. Some details of the agreement have yet to surface, but essentially the City of Orange agreed to come up with a substantial rent subsidy over a 10-year period and the landlord cut an attractive long-term lease deal.

The message in putting together such public/private incentives is that leaders must communicate and cooperate. And the way to accomplish that may be no more complicated that putting aside factional differences and, with the interests of a region in mind, sitting down at a table to talk.