Creator of Jobs

How to keep industrial firms from leaving New England and how to attract others to the area has been the vital endeavor of the Massachusetts Business Development Corporation for the last year and a half. Some of the successful results of this plan, which was devised for the state by Governor Christian Herter, were recently described in a question-and-answer interview with Carl F. Woods '04, president, in the Boston Sunday Herald. Mr. Woods, who is board chairman of Swank, Inc., serves the MBDC without pay.

Financial aid from the Massachusetts Business Development Corporation has created 1,500 jobs in the state, brought in by new industries; and some 6,000 workers have benefited from loans given to firms which in many cases would have been discontinued without the aid. Through financial assistance to a development corporation, the MBDC indirectly contributed to the employment of 2,500 more industrial workers and 500 government employes. It cooperates also with local groups, in such places as Lawrence and Lowell, to provide means for the attraction of new industry to occupy mills that have been abandoned, as well as helping to erect modern buildings for new industries. To date the MBDC has made loans amounting to $6,420,000 at six per cent to 47 firms in 25 industries, such as plastics, paper, electronics, foundries, tool and die works, and fish processing.

The money loaned is private money, coming either from the sale of stock or through borrowing from banks. No return is guaranteed the stockholder. He may receive dividends later if the corporation earns money. The only way he gets his money back is to sell his stock. Already the $10-share has a book value of $9.67. Shares are sold through appeals to businessmen to help better their community industries.

Each one of the New England states has a development corporation, as does New York. Some fifteen other states are in the process of forming them, using many procedures similar to those of the Massachusetts plan.

Mr. Woods, an industrial engineer, has been active in alumni affairs, having served as a member, then president, of the Alumni Council, a visitor on the Chandler Foundation, and president of the General Alumni Association. For several years he was also president of the Athletic Council.

Carl F. Woods '04