ACCELERATED EFFORTS
Emboldened by Tesla bid, state leaders want to reinvigorate Oklahoma's automotive industry
For a few weeks this spring, Oklahoma found itself in a familiar situation.
A globally recognized company needed a new location for its manufacturing facility, and Tulsa was on the shortlist. But Tesla, the automotive and technology company led by Elon Musk, ultimately chose Austin for its next Gigafactory that will produce the Cybertruck.
Oklahoma remained in the running until the very end, Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce Sean Kouplen said Thursday as t he st ate Commerce Department launched a new accelerator program designed to lure more automotive industry here and encourage existing companies to expand.
Kouplen was hesitant when he first heard Tesla was looking for a new site, thinking the company had already made its decision and just wanted to drum up publicity. Ultimately, however, he said, "Why not?"
"So I jump out there and send (Musk) a tweet. The governor sends him a tweet. And I thought, why don't we get Oklahoma behind this effort and let' s see if we can't get him bombarded with tweets from all over the state of Oklahoma?"
Oklahoma wasn't on Tesla's radar before that initial push, Kouplen said, but a corporate executive made a trip here to see what all the fuss was about. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also wrangled a dinner with Musk, who recently celebrated the first launch of a commercial space crew to the International Space Station with his other company, SpaceX.
Bridenstine, a former Oklahoma congressman, also invited Gov. Kevin Stitt and state economic development leaders to sit down face-toface with Musk.
With that ad hoc effort, Oklahoma's latest generation of business-focused leadership got a taste of the auto industry that once produced nearly $2 billion a year worth of vehicles and parts in this state. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that by 2017, in the span of just 15 years, auto industry manufacturing was less than half that.
The industry in Oklahoma is nearly as old as the state itself. Ford Motor Company built an assembly plant here in 1915, which lasted through the 1960s. General Motors christened its own assembly plant in 1979, while three tire plants opened in Oklahoma City, Lawton and Ardmore. The GM plant closed in 2005.
According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, auto industry manufacturers at one point employed nearly 28,000 Oklahomans. Although the Tesla Gig a factory will be in Texas, Kouplen wants to bring some of those old jobs back with the Commerce Department's new Automotive Accelerator Program that will focus, in part, on Gigafactory suppliers.
"We'll take anybody. We believe there is a revolution occurring within the automotive world," he said. "Frankly, we think the tier one and tier two suppliers would be very smart to move to Oklahoma."
The program has three core components. Commerce and the governor can use the Oklahoma Quick Action Closing Fund as a wallet to lure business. The state will also market its tax credit for automotive engineers, and work to expedite permitting on the federal, state and local levels.
Oklahoma could use more engineers, said George K os to poul os, vice president of global sales at ATC Drivetrain, a company that can trace its roots to the Fred Jones Manufacturing Company that launched in 1938.
ATC still employs hundreds of Oklahomans at its plant.
“Engineers that understand mechatronics, the combination of mechanical components with electronic controls, is absolutely a necessity for our industry today. Likewise, engines are becoming more and more complicated ,” Kostopoulos said.
ATC's Director of Human Resources, Jessica Ramirez, added that a direct flight between Oklahoma City and Detroit would help grow the industry here, too.
Ultimately, like with Tesla, the growth of automotive jobs in Oklahoma will only happen if employers move here. Commerce officials hope the accelerator program will be the catalyst for that growth.