GREENSBORO, N.C. — Monday's news of Toyota coming to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite is an announcement 30 plus years in the making.
The Piedmont Triad has tried several times before to bring a company to the site. Dr. John Rees was one of those people who worked on it for years.
"I was appointed by Governor Jim Hunt to be one of the five professors to design a methodology to get incentives to the state of North Carolina so the state could offer incentives for a new industry to come in," Dr. Rees said.
Dr. Rees is a retired UNCG professor and worked on an incentive methodology for years.
Dr. Rees said North Carolina was the first state to develop an incentive methodology. That means if a company promises to bring 10,000 jobs, but only creates 5,000, the company must give 50% of the incentive back.
He said we've lost to other states before including losing Mercedes to Alabama, but he's proud that North Carolinians kept pushing to make something happen.
"I think its lovely. It means that my theory is correct. You develop a theory, you make the conditions, you then work in those conditions. You don't give up," Dr. Rees said.
While the Triad may have gotten lost in the shuffle in the past, this puts Greensboro on the map.
"Its not only the guy in Washington reading about this, its a guy in Hong Kong is reading about this. All of a sudden Greensboro, North Carolina is getting attention from Singapore, Hong Kong and other places west," Dr. Rees said.