Triad Manufacturing Goes High-Tech.

• Author: Johnson, Clint
• Position: Piedmont Triad industry goes high-tech

Welcome to the Piedmont Triad." Out-of-state visitors can find this highway sign perplexing. But once they look at a map of North Carolina and realize that the region's three major cities -- Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point -- form a triangle and that the region lies between the coastal plain and the mountains -- a "piedmont" -- they nod in understanding.

If those visitors are site-selection consultants or on a corporate real-estate search team and happen to look at statistics for the 12 counties making up the region, they may do more than nod. They may start asking about available land.

That's because the Piedmont Triad is -- and just about always has been -- North Carolina's center of manufacturing.

Beginning in the latter part of the 18th century, small manufacturers, primarily mills for grinding grain and later textile mills, began setting up along the web of small streams and rivers across the region. Furniture craftsmen, attracted to the area because of the surrounding hardwood forests, sent their finest chairs and chests to the state capital, an early way of marketing their wares.

In 1875, Virginia entrepreneur R.J. Reynolds rode into Winston with a vision of processing chewing tobacco on a large scale. By the late 19th century, textile mills were found in many towns in the region. Where there was water, there were mills.

A couple of decades later, in the early 20th century, the textile and clothing mills had expanded and chosen Greensboro as a de facto regional center. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. had started manufacturing cigarettes, an industry that proved so successful that it helped set off a building boom so large that neighboring Salem decided to merge with Winston in 1913. Efficient manufacturers replaced individual furniture craftsmen and chose the "High Point" on the railroad line for their hometown.

In the 21st century, those industries -- textiles and apparel, cigarettes and furniture -- remain vital to the region. They have been joined by a variety of other manufacturers attracted to the Piedmont Triad for its central location, Piedmont Triad International Airport, the junction of Interstate 40 and Interstate 85 and, most important of all, a work force steeped in the tradition of making things.

"The key things manufacturers consider when they are looking at us are the location, the access to highway, rail and air [transporta-tion] and the labor availability," says Robert Leak Jr., president of Winston-Salem Business Inc. "The manufacturing history of this area is very important to a lot of prospects. Our economy has changed somewhat over the last 15 years, but we are still the leader in particular kinds of businesses."

This 250-year tradition of manufacturing cannot be duplicated in North Carolina or almost anywhere in the nation. There are nearly 3,000 manufacturing companies in the region, and about 28% of the region's 748,000-person work force is involved in manufacturing.

Those with the highest technical skills may be working in the clean rooms at RF Micro Devices Inc. of...