Q&A: Green Mayor Dick Norton on the reasons for his city’s success

The City of Green incorporated only in 1992. But the community seems to have found traction, adding more than 30 new businesses last year and announcing expansions by companies like Kovatch Castings, Akron General Hospital and Summa Health System. The city's revenues also are climbing, with income tax collections alone up 17 percent so far this year. In this abridged interview, hiVelocity speaks to Mayor Dick Norton about why Green is doing so well.

What attracts businesses to a city like Green?

I think first and foremost we're in a great position of having a very attractive location. The Akron Canton Airport is five minutes from my office and five minutes for most people who live or do business in Green. And then, we've invested quite a bit, and continue to do so, in our infrastructure -- our main arteries, our roads, our sidewalks and those sort of things. We're trying to give businesses that are here reasons to remain, and those that aren't here plenty of reasons to consider Green as one of their choices. We've got an interstate that bisects the city, Interstate 77. And we're strategically located between the cities of Akron and Canton. And then when you couple that with land -- we have a fair amount of land that's already been developed and available for construction -- you have a pretty good recipe for success.

One of the things you did last year was to hire a PR firm to develop messaging and you started a Facebook page. Why?

We have a wide variety of initiatives -- not one of them is going to be in and of itself the main reason we're able to attract and retain businesses, it's the menu of all of them. But we chose to expand the awareness of Green. How do you make people aware of all the main reasons for people to move here? Updating on a regular basis, and creating a much more attractive and easy to navigate website was part of that, as was engaging a well thought-of public relations firm to help us with our messaging. Engaging wherever we can in terms of our social media helps us in that desire to let the world know who we are and what we are and why Green is a good place to be. For example, on the website we've created an inventory of as much as we could get of every property that's for sale or lease.

What sorts of companies is Green trying to attract?

We want to get the best and the brightest and a wide range of businesses that will provide diversity in our revenue. We have a preference for companies that have employees in that 50 to 300 range. We like it when they serve in diverse industries and they're diverse in their own customer base. And what that does is it lowers the risk profile of the community. So we've done a really good job of making that happen. Trust me, I love Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies and we have them, and you want them. We have many on the other scale, the mom and pops, the retail establishments that have maybe 10 people. You need them too, because they bring services that residents want.

You mentioned the strategic advantage of being close to two larger cities, but I'm wondering if there are some disadvantages when competing for certain companies.

I don't see them as a disadvantage. We occasionally do compete. But I never go into a neighboring community and try to pilfer one of their companies. I have a bigger picture view as a region. You move the chairs and you move the companies but you don't prosper in total. However, if you don't permit these companies to come to the more prosperous and the more progressive and maybe newer cities that have all the components they want, they can and do choose to go somewhere else. A few years back we had a company called FedEx Custom Critical. They employ about 800 people. They were in the Akron market, and they chose Green. But here's what happened: They weren't deciding whether to go to Akron or Green, they were deciding whether to go to Green or Georgia.

Your office has said the city could see 700 new jobs in the next two to three years. Could you elaborate?

We have legitimate expansions going on that would have at least an impact of north of 700 jobs. In the meantime, we have other things going on in the pipeline that look like they're going to be accretive to adding to the number of jobs in the city. So we have a high job retention rate and we have a high job add rate, but again we're very careful -- it's not just about adding jobs, it's what kind of companies do you want to bring? The City of Green has a vision. And that's to be ranked as one of the 10 best places to live in the country.  We've sort of adopted the Akron Canton airport business model. They've had unbelievable growth over the years. But the customer experience has not only been maintained, it's actually improved. We're about that as a city, and we don't intend to lose it.

What are some of the biggest challenges you're facing?

If you look at our land size, we are enormous compared to other cities. Thirty-four square miles is a lot. We recall that we started life as a township. And until the last 10 or 15 years we were very rural, so we have many roads that look like township roads, and our access to public utilities is not complete. So it's finding the right mix and bringing modern utilities and services to parts of the city at a pace that we can afford and a pace that we can endure. We could do more if we were willing to take on more debt, but we are going to absorb this as we go. We're going to have a combination of improving the infrastructure out of current earnings, surplus, and debt, but not just debt.

Give me your elevator pitch for the city of Green.

It's a prosperous city, it's a promising city, it's a city with a future. It's not a city in decline. As a resident, and if you're a business owner, you and your employees will like your experience living, working and doing business in Green. And if you have enough time on the elevator, you bring in the excellence of the schools, you talk about the parks. We can offer you the ability to have your half acre or an acre of land, your house -- you can enjoy it with your family, your friends, your relatives, your business associates. But when you want to be social, we have a whole host of social activities for you to enjoy. If you want more, we have Cleveland and Akron and Canton and Youngstown and on and on within minutes. And if I were in business or raising a family, that's where I would want to be.