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Originally posted by FoshaBen:
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Originally posted by noblessf:
I love this topic and have nothing new to add but to simply re-instate what's already been said. I also was born and raised in Florence; I went away to college but finally settled at UNA. Finally a year after graduating and still working at my 'college job' I had to move. I'm in Atlanta now and my husband and I are relocating to start our business. Florence was a consideration but everything that's been said is reason enough. After living in a huge city for the last 7 years I really miss the Shoals but it would just be too big of an adjustment for the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to in a larger city. It is a great place to raise a family but what happens when that family gets too big for Florence??? Good luck residents! I'll stick to my visits on Holidays.
I can't emphasize how much we need people to come back home, and bring their businesses with them.
There needs to be a re-awakening in the area.. a revitalization. The motto of every city council, the Chamber of Commerce, and our representatives in Montgomery ought to be "Come Back Home". There needs to be some sort of marketing campaign geared toward getting people back, coupled with a strong and genuine effort to bring and attract businesses that will not only employ many workers, but will provide more professional jobs. They more higher paying white collar jobs you have in the area, the more the economy will be boosted. You've got to have that so that the other levels of the economic tier can thrive as well. We need to find our economic niche and expertise that will generate revenue and jobs, and match that with specialized studies at UNA to feed back into the local labor market.
I read through all the posts before putting my two cents worth in but I felt I had to reply specifically to this post from FoshaBen. I can tell you, as someone who attempted the very thing you suggest, the predominant mentality in the Shoals area doesn't allow for it. Let me give you a reality check about natives "bringing your business back to the Shoals".
My husband and I love the Shoals area. I'm a native, born and bred, moved away to Atlanta the first time at 22 when I got married to my now ex-husband and we both needed jobs. Moved back after my divorce to re-group. Met my second husband, who is a military brat and doesn't really have anywhere he calls "home", but adopted the Shoals after living with me in Florence for a while. We both lost our jobs when the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor Plant in Iuka was defunded by Congress and we and another 700 people were suddenly unemployed. Hubby is an aerospace engineer who couldn't buy a job because that industry, even in Huntsville, was pretty dead at that time. So, I found myself leaving the Shoals for a second time, again in search of employment. Fast forward seven years, we're back in the Shoals area and trying to start our own consulting business. My husband still had lots of contacts in the industry and Boeing had just opened in Decatur. He was told by many of those contacts that Boeing desperately wanted and needed to subcontract with some of the small manufacturing firms in the Shoals (a requirement of their contract with the gov't was to partner with local businesses). Unfortunately, these local businesses were not qualified to be suppliers because they had no quality (i.e ISO9000,etc.) plans or procedures in place; a requirement for any sub-contractor, again, per the gov't contracts. Enter me and my hubby, who is a black belt in Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing, ISO-9000, you name it. We did everything we were told would make our new little business a success. We attended Chamber of Commerce meetings on both sides of the river and small business information lunches. We went to the small business assistance office at UNA and worked really hard putting together a presentation about what we could do for these local small business manufacturing guys that would enable them to become qualified sub-contractors to Boeing, the biggest game in town, and would guarantee these little shoestring companies an income flow they could only dream of....can you guess what happened??????? NOT A **** THING, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED! We went to visit as many of them as would actually agree to meet with us but got the same stupid, backwards, myopic answer from each one of them. "Well, uh, I don't know....you see, we've been operating this way since my granddaddy opened this shop yadda, yadda...and we've been getting by okay"....WHAT????? We could not convince a single small business owner we spoke to that allowing us to come into their shop, observing the way they did whatever it was they did, and then customizing a quality plan for them was worth paying for, even when it would guarantee them an opportunity to sub-contract to Boeing and start literally raking in the cash. I really shouldn't have been surprised since I was born and raised around these stupid people, but I was....I mean, who in their right mind would turn down a sure thing opportunity like that? You guessed it, Shoals business owners!
We finally faced reality and gave up in total disgust. I was lucky and managed to get a dinky little office job paying the grand sum of $8.50 an hour (big money for that area) and my husband went on unemployment. For a third time in my life, I was looking at leaving the Shoals...not because we wanted to, believe me, but because we had no other choice -- we needed JOBS!
All my immediate family are still in the Shoals, stubbornly hanging on by their fingernails, some working two jobs just to make ends meet. We've now been in California four years, make a really NICE living ($200k+), live 1/4 mile from the ocean, own our own home, and are never at a loss for entertainment opportunities of every variety and at any time of the day or night.
We've been back to the Shoals to visit only once during the past four years and I don't know when we'll make it back again. Other than seeing my family face-to-face and the opportunity for my husband to gorge himself on fried catfish, there, sadly, isn't anything that draws up back.
As far as retirement goes, despite all the hype of the RSA, we won't even consider the Shoals for that when my hubby gives up the rat race in about 10 years. We'll be selling our house here in So Cal and looking to buy somewhere along the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast. We know, as much as we love the Shoals area, there isn't nearly enough to do around there for active retirees. You can only play so much golf and we'd rather swim in the warm ocean than a chilly, dirty river.
I wish LAWGRL and any others all the luck in the world on their mission to change the status quo, but I wonder if they aren't just flogging a dead horse? As is the case in most small towns where you have old money, the children of said old money crowd that are currently running things have been raised in "the moneyed bubble", are just as out of touch and short-sighted as their elders, and will perpetuate the cycle when they come to power.
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