Memphis airport helped to land HQ firm

JACKSON - DeSoto County's proximity to Memphis International Airport factored heavily in an Israeli company's decision to establish its U.S. headquarters in Olive Branch and create about 800 Mississippi jobs at an average salary of $67,000 a year, a top state economic development official said Thursday.

Mississippi Development Authority officials and Gov. Haley Barbour want state legislators to approve $100 million in bonds, largely to finance building and equipment for four HCL CleanTech Inc. research and development and production facilities across the state along with the corporate headquarters in Olive Branch.

The company converts wood chips into cellulosic sugars which can be used in producing animal nutrition, cosmetics, lubricants, fuel and "surfactants," which Webster's Dictionary defines as "a substance that, when added to a liquid, affects the physical properties of the liquid surface, e.g. increasing its wetting properties or assisting the formulation of emulsified liquids."

Barbour called a one-day special legislative session so lawmakers can consider the bond requests today.

Legislators must approve the requests before the bonds can be issued.

Two top state economic development officials laid out details of the bond request for HCL CleanTech, along with two other projects, during an unofficial meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.

The Memphis airport helped attract the company to Olive Branch, said Whit Hughes, deputy director of the Mississippi Development Authority.

"In large part, our project management process is about responding to what the marketplace or the customer, our client, is telling us," Hughes said after making his presentation.

"And one of the key drivers for them, for their headquarters, was being close to an international airport. So the Memphis airport and its proximity to DeSoto County and Olive Branch was appealing."

The company plans to build its Olive Branch headquarters and a research and development facility in Grenada, a total of about 200 jobs, by the end of 2013, Hughes said.

HCL CleanTech expects to complete its first large-scale operation in 2015, the second in 2017 and its final operation in 2019.

Barbour issued a news release Wednesday saying the large-scale operations would be built in the Booneville, Hattiesburg and Vicksburg areas for a total investment of about $1 billion.

"That's billion, with a 'b,'" Hughes told senators.

Mississippi's pine forests are becoming more attractive to companies such as HCL CleanTech that are moving away from corn-based products to those using wood, he said.

In addition to the HCL CleanTech project, senators heard details behind a $75.3 million, state-backed bond request for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Calisolar Inc.

The company wants to build a silicon metal and solar silicon production facility in Lowndes County.

Calisolar's project would create 951 jobs with an average salary of $45,000 a year, Hughes said.