Posted on 03/13/2017 12:38:17 AM PDT by iowamark
OK, that’s a lame post title; maybe I’ll come up with something wittier later.
But Caterpillar just announced that it is moving 300 top executives and support staff from Peoria to the Chicago area. The local Journal Star reports that Caterpillar’s explanation is that this puts them closer to transportation networks:
“What we’re really after here in terms of the location is access to flights and the ability to get to markets more quickly,” [CEO Jim] Umpleby said. “One of the reasons we chose Chicago is it allows us that easier global access but it also is close to where we’re going to still have the majority of our people. We have more people here than any other location in the world.”
The Chicago Tribune adds a further explanation: it’s easier to recruit talent to work in Chicago than in Peoria. It reports,
Last year, Caterpillar opened an innovation-focused office in the Merchandise Mart that the company hoped would attract young, tech-savvy talent.Employees in the Merchandise Mart focus on digital marketing, analytics, digital development and other innovation projects.
And a local columnist gives this explanation:
Perhaps Caterpillar’s seventh floor is leaving Peoria for a more simple, personal reason, at least in part: Umpleby and other executives want to live somewhere else.
Granted, we are speculating. But after talks with plenty of well-connected people the past few days, we believe this theory deserves at least some consideration.
Umpleby is a Caterpillar veteran, with more than 30 years of service. But it appears little of that time has been spent at a Peoria base.
The Chicago-area native worked for Caterpillar all over the country and world, including Malaysia, San Diego and Singapore. How you gonna keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Kuala Lumpur?
And, indeed, all the articles report that senior management has increasingly been coming from other industries, rather than working their way up the ranks or even coming from heavy-equipment companies. As the daughter of a GM employee, I know well that there’s a deep suspicion of people coming from other companies, other industries, and thinking that all companies can be run with essentially the same management toolkit. Dad was even skeptical of senior management that came from accounting rather than being a true “car guy.” And — well, without naming my current or prior employers — I also harbor a suspicion of executives who come in and profess commitment to a company and make radical changes but can’t even be bothered to relocate.
I get that there are a lot of reasons why people prefer large cities. It’s difficult to find high-skill jobs for both spouses in a small town, and what’s more, in a large city it’s much easier to job-hop without relocating. You want your kids to go to a top-rated school, and you want them to have all the extracurricular options a large city affords, and you yourself want plenty of options in shopping, entertainment, and so on. And if you’re wealthy, you want a social circle composed of people like you that you can find in the tony suburbs or wealthy urban enclaves of a big city.
And I get that in the year 2017 companies want to believe that they have the top talent in the world, not just the top talent in their local employment base.
But it’s still a concerning trend. It’s a problem for the future of the U.S. for the country to consist of a small number of massively growing megalopolises, and a large number of shrinking, struggling smaller towns.
And it’s not just that. Think about everything that’s been written about the growing divide between red states and blue states, rural and urban, the left-behind white working class and the elites, watchers of Duck Dynasty and whatever HBO show it is that snooty people watch these days. And now consider how many corporations are physically separating their top executives from the rest of their employees. Conagra and ADM are cited in the Tribune article, but they’re not alone. Yes, you might say that top executives are already so far removed from the “little people” even when their offices were located in the same town anyway, so it doesn’t matter — but it does matter. In the year 2017 it very much matters.
Corporate headquarters concentrating in a few big cities. Failed cities like Chicago run by Democrat machines.
This is like GE moving its HQ from Connecticut to Taxachusetts.
February 1, 2017...
Someone forgot to tell you it’s March :)
WAY too many dated threads lately without even acknowledging it in the Title.
Don’t know why folk do this.
An announcement 5 or 6 weeks ago is hardly old news. It is news to me because I just read this. I am sure that there are others who have not read this also. The significance is not so much about the one company, Caterpillar, as the trend to move businesses to the big cities.
We are still subject to filtered and fake news.
Caterpiller here in the Pittsburgh area failed a year or two ago, I don't know why, but to make a move to Chicago looks an awful lot like the last gasp before go8ing under.
The site I work at brought in a whole bunch of management from C&S Wholesaler.
The lead clown had his friends fall on their swords for him.
And he totally screwed the pooch on many occasions.
Eventually he left.
But the damage is permanent.
Then, "You're going to LOVE our new web site starting this weekend "
then, "You're going to LOVE our new web site starting tomorrow night (Friday)"
And the damned site had a 404 error.
Friday night, all day Saturday and halfway through Sunday before it finally connected.
And you know what was different?
The login ID and password went from the center of the left hand margin to the upper right corner !
All the way through the weekend I kept formulating my thoughts and words to blast whomever this morning, "GET THOSE FRIKKIN' KIDS OUT'A MY BANK AND GIVE ME A BANK, NOT A NEW LOOK !"
It's early yet ... I still may do it.
That left coast pro-homosexual Ron Johnson pretty much single-handedly destroyed J.C. Penny, but Dallas was too much of a hick town (in his ignorant mind) for him to want to move there.
"Despite all of that, Johnson and 9 other senior executives, many of whom came with him from Apple, commute to the company's Plano headquarters via private jet. It was actually part of his agreement with the company that he be permitted to continue living in Palo Alto." http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-johnson-commuting-culture-2013-3
Wonder what kind of tax sweetheart deal Rahm Emmanuel (Mayor of Shitcago) gave them? That's been the primary way he's gotten so many corporate exec's to move their HQ's to Shitcago.
Translation? “We’re too important to be stuck in some backwater burg like Peoria. All the hookers know us and it’s expensive to bring in outside help every time we want to throw an orgy ... er, I mean a board meeting.”
Businesses which expend substantial resources worrying about the location and appearance of their corporate headquarters, are stealing those resources from production of their product. Nothing good follows.
Has anyone here been to Peoria lately?
I’m guessing the executives and board have voted to or will soon vote to give themselves substantial “cost of living” increases due to the additional cost of Chicago vs Peoria. Glad I don’t own any ‘cat stock. These guys are ‘effin up by the numbers. If this is their idea of a well-timed and well-reasoned business move, the company is doomed.
“faster than a locomotive” (everyone under 60 is asking.. “what is a locomotive?”) (Superman)
It’s from a song by Jethro Tull, /s ninny,. (what’s a Jethro Tull and what’ a ninny?)
Anyway..... my point......
DID THEY NEVER HEAR OF THE INTERNET?
It’s hard to take bulldozers on a plane with you to show to your clients, I don’t care how big your “hub” is.
Caterpillar is under IRS Investigation, related?
Is this a shadow government harassment move?
I bet they could buy their own fleet of small corporate jets, park them at General Wayne A. Downing - Peoria International Airport, save what they are paying the airlines, save the cost of moving, save the years of higher per-square-foot office space costs in Chicago, and either break even or come out ahead.
These guys wives want to live closed to the elite shopping centers. Back in the early 1970’s Standard oil built a large office tower in Chicago. The wife of the chairman of the board wanted a special color marble to encase the entire exterior of the building. The architects advised the chairman that the marble she wanted was fragile and would have to be replaced in a short amount of time. His response was: “you guys don’t have to live with her, I do”. 20 years later the entire building had to be repaired/rebuilt costing almost as much as its original construction. Be aware of the power of the va-jay-jay.
I don’t understand it. We’ve traveled through Peoria dozens of times to avoid the Madison/Chicago/Gary dem-hole while en-route to the east coast.
I sorta like Peoria. Compared to Chicago, it appears clean and well organized.
I don’t understand Cat???
That move will cost them in more ways than one.
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