The initial interest is often due to a special someone, such as a founder, investor or site selection consultant, who believes Sarasota or Manatee counties would be a good fit. Then the company is wooed by suitors, often economic development officials, bestowing gifts. They offer help with permitting, tax breaks or other financial incentives. They introduce the company to the business community, just like meeting the family or close friends. If all goes well, the company decides to make a long-term commitment.

We interviewed executives of three companies to find out what attracted them to Southwest Florida.

Company: United Natural Foods
What it does: The largest publicly traded wholesale distributor to the natural and organic foods industry.
Came here: Opened a facility in September 2007
The attraction: Florida has been a growing market for UNF, which was seeking to open its first distribution facility in the state. It had looked extensively along I-4 between Tampa and Orlando, says Tom Dziki, UNF’s vice president of sustainable development. Then a 397,000-square-foot former Winn-Dixie distribution center in Sarasota piqued his curiosity because it would be quicker to move into the facility than build one. The quick trip from Sarasota to a number of UNF customers—grocery stores, independent natural and health food stores and college campuses in cities such as Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Miami—added to the location’s value.
Being wooed: Another key factor was assistance from the Economic Development Corporation of Sarasota County, which Dziki says, made the area stand out. “Let’s put it this way,” he says. “We already have a facility in Atlanta and (were) being courted by Georgia. We did end up moving some of this business from Georgia into Florida. It was really the combination of the two—looking at the miles we were driving and the incentives from the state.”
Incentives received: $750,000 from the Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund for UNF’s high-wage job creation, which Dziki notes helps provide consistent year-round employment in the often seasonally focused region. “We look at [incentives in] every location we go to because there’s a lot of incentives out there, and when you’re bringing in as many jobs as we do, obviously that has a huge economic impact on the community,” he says.
Growth track: The Florida facility is one of many for the $2.7 billion company, which also opened a distribution center outside of Portland, Ore., in 2007. Others are located in Washington, California, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida and New Jersey.
Number of employees: 250 locally
Salaries: Average annual pay is $44,000.
Biggest surprise: Being able to fill driver positions. “We have a lot of opportunity to find well-qualified drivers to work for us, which is really not the norm for the rest of the country,” Dziki says. “We were surprised to see we had a strong contingent of drivers to choose from.”

Company: Gyrocam Systems
What it does: Manufacturer of precision gyroscope-stabilized camera systems and surveillance solutions for military, law enforcement and federal agencies.
Came here: Relocated in late 1999 from Morristown, N.J.
The attraction: Founder Ken Sanborn grew up in Lakeland. He lived most of his life in the Northeast, but often vacationed on Longboat Key. When Gyrocam, founded in 1987, began to grow from a small boutique manufacturing facility into a major defense contractor, space for expansion wasn’t available in his headquarters in Morristown, N.J. So Sanborn began looking for locations near airports in Florida. The Manatee County Economic Development Council, led by Nancy Engel, introduced him to Fredrick Piccolo, director of the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. “They really shepherded us and helped us to make the decision to come here,” Sanborn says. “Between those two people, their willingness to bend over backwards to do whatever they could to make us feel welcome and to get the building built …within a year, we had our building built and moved into it.”
Being wooed: Sanborn felt that local officials were more aggressive than in other areas in efforts to recruit his high-tech, “kind of sexy business, if you want to use that word,” he says. “It was a very clean, high-profile business. I think the Manatee EDC and the airport recognized that and really pushed to make it easy for us to move down here.” In Morristown, there were so many Fortune 500 companies that “we weren’t treated very well. Here we were treated like we were Donald Trump.”
Incentives received: The SMART (Sarasota Means Action Response Team) program, which offered fast-track permitting. That pushed Gyrocam to the front of the line, Sanborn says. Its 30,000-square-foot building at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport was finished within six to seven months. “It was done very, very rapidly,” he says. “A very painless process.”
Growth track: Gyrocam has generated more than $200 million in revenue in the past 18 months. Its airport facility is home to research, development, marketing, sales and training operations. Last fall, the company was in the process of retrofitting a 28,000-square-foot building in Commerce Park to become its primary manufacturing facility.
Number of employees: 114
Salaries: Annual salaries range from the $40,000s to more than $100,000.
Biggest surprise: Sanborn feels the company is on the radar more in Southwest Florida than in New Jersey. “We’ve been kind of shocked that people are so aware of the company and what we do,” he says. He’s welcomed the publicity, including a visit from President Bush in October 2006. “If we were in New Jersey, I’m not sure the president would have come to visit our facility,” he says.