Economy
Unpredictable time
By LAURIE WINSLOW
World Staff Writer
Like a teeter-totter, the Tulsa-area economy has tilted between highs and lows over the past decade.
Gasoline prices have tottered from less than 90 cents a gallon in 2001 to nearly $4 a gallon last year.
The Dow Jones industrial average has teetered from a record high of more than 14,000 in 2007 to a low in the mid-6,000 range this year.
Moreover, the metro area’s jobless rate has fluctuated from a low of 2.4 percent in 2000 to a high of 7.5 percent this year.
Throughout it all, however, the metro area has maintained a balance that has enabled it to survive, and, at times, even thrive.
Bob Ball, the economic researcher for the Tulsa Metro Chamber, uses the word “adaptable” to describe the Tulsa economy, which has weathered two recessions over the past decade.
Tulsa’s economy was booming at the start of the decade before the recession and 9/11 terrorist attacks convulsed the country. Almost overnight, the stock market plummeted. People stopped boarding planes. Layoffs became larger.
Tulsa took a long time to come out of the decade’s first recession, which lasted between March and November 2001, because of the hit sustained by air transportation and telecom, Ball said.
Several local companies suffered layoffs that year, including Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc., Nordam Group Inc., Boeing Co. and American Airlines. American laid off 20 percent of its then 138,000-person work force, including 400 mechanics at American’s Maintenance & Engineering Center and 350 Tulsa-based management and administrative workers.
Northeastern Oklahoma received another jolt in 2001 when Phillips Petroleum Co., as part of its proposed merger with Conoco Inc., said it planned to relocate to Houston from Bartlesville – its home since 1917.
The nationwide slowdown took a toll on the city in 2002, but again the local economy displayed resilience.
With the collapse of Houston-based Enron Corp. in late 2001, Williams Cos. Inc. and other energy traders the following year saw their credit ratings lowered. Williams let go more than 1,000 people, including 600 in Tulsa, as it fought to survive amid the credit downgrades, mounting debts and diminished cash flow.
While Williams avoided filing for bankruptcy protection and later regained its prominence, others weren’t so fortunate. In 2002, telecom provider Williams Communications Group Inc. and WorldCom Inc. both filed for bankruptcy
By 2003, the Tulsa economy was definitely feeling the strains of an economic downturn, as companies dropped thousands from payrolls.
Tulsans listened and waited apprehensively after owners of Citgo Petroleum Corp. announced they were considering moving the headquarters of the nation’s fourth-largest gasoline retailer from Tulsa to Houston. By April 2004, those worries were confirmed when residents learned that Citgo would shift hundreds of high-paying jobs to Texas.
Sick and tired of the economic downturn, Tulsa County voters approved Vision 2025, a multi-million-dollar improvements and incentives sales tax package, which included $22 millions for American Airlines.
Things really began to turn around, however, in 2005, as Tulsa began gaining jobs at a rapid pace during the year.
That summer energy prices soared to new highs after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged and shut down significant oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil surpassed $70 a barrel, and gasoline prices exceeded $3 a gallon.
Low interest rates fueled home construction, which experienced a third straight record year in 2005. Suburbs such as Jenks, Owasso and Broken Arrow rivaled or outpaced construction within Tulsa.
By 2006, Tulsa’s economic comeback was nothing short of spectacular. A resurgent energy industry fueled a booming manufacturing sector. Aerospace once again was thriving, and American Airlines for the first time in six years posted some consecutive profitable quarters.
Overall, Tulsa’s economy remained resilient in 2007 despite high energy prices nationwide and a credit crisis that began with rising defaults on subprime mortgages. By the end of 2007 the nation had officially entered another recession.
Oklahoma’s energy sector and low exposure to the subprime mortgage market helped the city and state continue to outperform the nation throughout 2008 — a year marked by a deteriorating financial crisis. Nationwide, financial institutions fell like dominoes, and Congress pushed through a controversial multi-billion-dollar financial rescue plan.
Names such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, troubled insurance giant American International Group, Wachovia Corp. and Washington Mutual were some that grabbled headlines.
By far, the biggest blow last year came when Tulsa’s corporate darling SemGroup LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 22 after admitting that its traders lost $2.4 billion due to wrong positions on the oil futures market.
Read more about SemGroup at tulsaworld.com/semgroup.
This year also has been tough. Between Jan. 2 and early March of this year, many feared the financial system would implode and trigger a Depression-like scenario. Unemployment rates across the country have steadily risen, with some states posting double-digit joblessness.
In October, the Tulsa area’s jobless rate hit 7.5 percent — its highest rate recorded since 1990 — but still lower than the U.S. average.
Tulsa’s performance during the most recent recession has been better than it was at the beginning of the decade, Ball noted. Tulsa’s conservative approach to lending and mortgage financing along with its strong entrepreneurial activity have benefit ed the area.
“It gave us a chance to really shine in the sense that we were able to show how reasonable we have managed ourselves,” he said.
Tech
By ROBERT EVATT
World Staff Writer
Going digital
We still don’t have stuff like flying cars and servant droids that countless science-fiction movies have promised us.
But the tech innovations that did arrive over the last decade have still changed the way we live.
Everything, it seems, has gone digital. Cell phones, home entertainment centers, cars and music players are just a few of the things that have transformed into specialized mini-computers.
And the digital world itself has undergone a drastic makeover, as the Internet boomed, burst, and boomed again, bringing us information and ways to connect most didn’t think possible 10 years ago.
Here now, in no particuar order, are 10 of the innovations and gadgets that came of age in the last decade and had the biggest impact on the tech-savvy and slow-adopters alike.
1. DVRs. Remember when you had to cue up a tape and pray you programmed the VCR for the right time? DVRs like TiVo make recording and watching shows so easy and hassle-free, it sometimes seems less convenient to see things live.
2. Digital music players. Before the iPod came along, the chunky Walkman and Discman could only play one album’s worth of music. Now these players can store thousands of songs in your pocket, and you can get more without ever setting foot in a store.
3. Smartphones. A cell phone that just makes phone calls? How quaint. Thanks to innovations taken from BlackBerry’s e-mails, digital cameras, and the iPhone’s apps, modern-day cell phones can literally have hundreds of functions.
4. GPS systems. Sure, global positioning was around long before 2000, but GPS units are now so small and cheap that every car can have a personal navigator, and cell phones can keep people from getting completely lost.
5. Social media. Personalized Web sites used to be horrible blotches of HTML code. Then blogs helped people get their thoughts to the world quickly, and sites like MySpace and Facebook connected them all together with minimal effort.
6. WiFi. Getting a device online used to mean tethering it to a modem with a cord. Now wireless networks have opened up the Web to game consoles, movie players and all kinds of other devices, and laptop users can surf anywhere they’d like.
7. HDTVs. The first few models were absurdly expensive. Then their prices plunged and networks started showing high-definition programming that really showed them off. Now makers are racing to put the biggest screen on the thinnest body.
8. Video on demand. Forget the tiny video windows that took forever to load up. You Tube brought you clear, watchable videos almost instantly, and now Netflix and other services will send movies to your home digitally.
9. The Nintendo Wii. Previously, games were all about mashing buttons and flicking a stick. The Wii turned the player into a controller, as the system recognizes shrugs, swings, jumps and all manner of gestures and translates them into game commands.
10. Netbooks. The world scoffed when plans for a $200 laptop were announced, but a funny thing happened — they took off. Now netbooks can do everything your average computer user wants to do without the weight or the expense.
Newsmakers
By World Business Staff
Some Tulsa business leaders made news in the decade for great accomplishments, while others found their way onto the list for other reasons.
No matter what the circumstances, here are the 10 people who stood out over the period.
George Kaiser — The Tulsa billionaire regularly was among the few Oklahomans to make Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest people. The chairman of BOK Financial Corp. and Kaiser-Francis Oil Co. was ranked 43rd on the 2009 list with a net worth estimated at $9 billion. Kaiser was a major city booster over the decade, funding many charitable causes, especially in education.
Tom Kivisto — A co-founder of Tulsa energy firm SemGroup LP, Kivisto spent most of the decade turning his company into one of the fastest-growing businesses in the nation and a major local charity funder. But in 2008, SemGroup got into trouble with billions in trading losses and filed for bankruptcy. Kivisto was fired by his own company and became the focus of an unflattering report by the bankruptcy court examiner.
Elliot Nelson — The young entrepreneur seemed to make it his mission to almost single-handedly revitalize downtown with such successful creations as James E. McNellie’s Public House, Yokozuna, Dilly Deli and El Guapo’s Cantina. Next is an eight-lane bowling alley. Despite that flurry of activity, the impression is that Nelson only is getting started.
Dewey Bartlett — For much of the past 10 years, Bartlett kept busy as president of Keener Oil & Gas. Then he decided the city needed a “business approach” to running its affairs and mounted a successful bid to become Tulsa’s 39th mayor.
Steve Malcolm — The longtime Williams Cos. Inc. executive took over as chairman, president and CEO at a critical time in the company’s long history. Industry fallout from the Enron Corp. collapse and a stressful foray into telecommunications had put the company on the brink of bankruptcy. But Malcolm skillfully guided Williams’ recovery, taking a short-term loan from none other than Warren Buffett to buy time in 2002. Unlike many turnaround CEOs, Malcolm has stayed in the top office to lead the company in a much different environment.
Chet Cadieux — The son of the founder of the QuikTrip convenience store chain, Chet Cadieux proved to have more than the family name going for him as he has continued QT’s rapid growth, particularly in promising markets outside the state. Cadieux also has served the community as chairman of the Tulsa Metro Chamber and solidified QuikTrip’s reputation as a great place to work.
Maurice Kanbar — The San Francisco-based inventor and philanthropist raised eyebrows and local hopes by purchasing 2.2 million square feet of office space in downtown Tulsa in 2005-2006 with partner Henry Kaufman. The pace of redevelopment has been slow, however, and Kanbar and Kaufman later had a falling out.
| JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World |
|
Paula Marshall — The executive continued to astutely lead Bama Cos. through various market ups and downs. The company, which employs 1,000 people in Tulsa and has another operation in China, makes a variety of foods for some of the world’s largest retailers, including McDonald’s Corp. Marshall also found time to write her first book, “Finding the Soul of Big Business.”
Sharon King Davis — As a partner in King Investments, Davis put up her own dollars to develop part of the Arkansas River with the Kings Landing project. She also did a major renovation on her KingsPointe Village retail center and was a tireless community volunteer. In particular, she will be remembered for the highly publicized extraction of a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that was buried in front of the Tulsa County Courthouse.
Colleen Payne-Nabors — The entrepreneur was named the 2007 Oklahoma Small Business Person of the Year for her work as founder, president and CEO of the MCI Diagnostic Center in Tulsa, a mobile cardiac care business she started in 1998. That was just one of many awards for the former nuclear medical technologist, who also is known for her contributions to community-oriented projects.
Lost Developments
By ROBERT EVATT
World Staff Writer
Tulsa’s seen a lot of retail development in the last decade — Tulsa Hills, the Bass Pro Shops area, RiverWalk Crossing and all manner of other shopping centers.
Still, there have been plenty of others that were planned but never broke ground.
A number of factors can kill a retail development. A large, “anchor” tenant could pull out. A previously promised source of money could back away. Or the development might not attract enough renters to proceed.
Naturally, the recession has made it even tougher for many developers, as banks and stores are now a lot more conservative with their cash.
Below are just a few of the retail developments that were announced over the last decade but haven’t yet materialized.
The River District
Location: The west bank of the Arkansas River, south of the Creek Turnpike in Jenks
Original plans: Lynn Mitchell and the River District Development Group were going for 852,000 square feet of upscale and unique shopping with a price tag of $1 billion. It would also include a host of restaurants, office space, condominiums, hotels and a performance fountain, and it was sought to be the site of the new Drillers’ stadium.
What happened: The 300-acre site was cleared a year ago, but nothing has happened there since.
Current status: Steve Walman, managing broker for Walman Commercial Real Estate Services and a real estate agent for the project, said the slumping economy and a lack of capital have slowed the project down, but it’s still making progress.
“We are working with the owners, and continue to do pre-development work,” he said.
Walman said they’re now shooting for construction to begin in 2011, though the scope of the project may change.
East Village
Location: Eastern downtown, bordering U.S. 75, Frankfor t Avenue and Fourth and Fifth streets
Original plans: John Williams of Claremore and Tom Seay of Arkansas proposed redeveloping the 15 acres for retail and residential use, and they would have incorporated a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a new stadium for the Drillers.
What happened: The stadium found a different location downtown, and Wal-Mart canceled their plans. The project lost momentum after that.
Current status: The city of Tulsa is now trying to find developers willing to come into the area, but it has found no takers yet.
The Channels
Location: Within the Arkansas River, south of downtown
Original plans: By far the most high-concept plan, Tulsa Stakeholders Inc. proposed damming the Arkansas River to create three linked islands totaling 40 acres. These islands would house 3,000 people, have commercial, hospitality, cultural and public uses and feature a giant solar canopy that would generate electricity and control the temperature.
What happened: The project never got off the ground, due in part to the fact that $600 million of the $780 million price tag was to have come from public investment.
Current status: With no public mention of the project from Tulsa Stakeholders Inc. in over three years, it appears to be dead.
Cornerstone Creek
Location: West side of Memorial Drive between 106th and 108th streets
Original plans: The $100 million, 335,000-square-foot retail center would focus on upscale, Utica Square-style shops and include a Wyndham Garden Hotel and a Life Time Fitness Center
What happened: Various factors tied to the recession.
Current status: Mendy Parish of CB Richard Ellis Oklahoma said Expert still plans on going forward with the project.
The Shoppes at Warren Place
Location: Southwest corner of 61st Street and Yale Avenue
Original plans: Parmenter Realty Partners of Dallas announced an 80,000- to 85,000-square-foot upscale retail center that would compliment the nearby Warren Place office towers and the Doubletree Hotel.
What Happened: In short, the recession, said Steve Bronner, managing principal of Parmenter.
“We had leases in process for 45 percent of the space, but in a 60-day period, that went down to 15 percent,” he said.
Current Status: Bronner said Parmenter still plans to build The Shoppes, but their targeted tenants are still skittish about the economy and may continue to wait before committing.
“Retailers have been telling us the soonest they could consider new locations is third or fourth quarter 2010,” he said.
Casinos
| STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World |
|
Hitting the jackpot
By KYLE ARNOLD
World Staff Writer
Oklahoma’s Native American tribes hit a multi-billion jackpot in 2004 when voters approved a sweeping expansion of gaming laws.
Just four years later, the state’s casinos were pulling in $2.89 billion, moving it from a minor player in the nation’s Indian gaming industry to the second largest, behind only California.
“Before 2004 it was mostly just bingo,” said David Stewart, CEO of Cherokee Nation Entertainment, owner of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, six other casinos in the state and the horse racing track in Tulsa.
The growing Indian gaming industry has been one of the most powerful and visible influences on Tulsa and Oklahoma’s economy in the last decade, creating thousands of jobs, creating a new tourism draw for many cities and making millions for communities and tribes.
In 2008, the last year data was collected, there were 110 tribal gaming facilities in Oklahoma, nearly a quarter of all such facilities nationwide. Then in 2009 the Muscogee Creek Nation opened a $195 million remodel of its River Spirit Casino along the Arkansas River in Tulsa. Likewise, the Cherokee Nation completed a $150 million expansion of the Cherokee Casino and Resort in Catoosa and the complex soon changed its name to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa.
Oklahoma’s eight largest casinos alone employ more than 10,000 people, mostly tribal members.
Along with a handful of other gaming venues in the greater Tulsa region, the casino industry became one of the region’s strongest tourism draws, according to the Tulsa Metro Chamber.
Airlines
| STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World |
|
Travel changes overnight
By D.R. STEWART
World Staff Writer
The 9/11 terrorist attacks changed many people’s view of the world, but they also forever altered the airport and airline experiences of travelers, industry analysts and executives say.
Before 19 terrorists seized airliners and flew them into targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001, airline travel still retained the romantic vestiges of an earlier era.
Air travel was exciting, exotic, adventurous.
“It was wonderful. Flying used to be a wonderful experience,” said Rick Hudson, a frequent business traveler and CEO of R.L. Hudson & Co. in Broken Arrow. “The terrorists won on 9/11 because they drastically altered the pleasure of flying.”
Mary Smith, director of the aerospace division of SpiritBank and a member of the Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, flew commercially for the first time in 1971.
“I flew from (Chicago) O’Hare (International Airport) to Houston,” Smith said. “I wore a blue dress. Everyone was dressed up because it was an event to fly back then.
“Contrast that with today: It’s not an event; it’s an endurance test.”
Before 9/11, airport and airline security was almost casual in the way it was orchestrated by airline employees and contractors.
Passengers were required to have a ticket — and sometimes identification — to board a plane. But meeters and greeters and sightseers could walk through an airport unchallenged in many cases, officials said.
“As a kid in high school, my girlfriend and I used to go to the airport and walk down the concourse just to watch planes take off,” said Alex Eaton, president of World Travel Service in Tulsa. “That whole experience has gone away.”
After 9/11, airport and airline security became regimented, rigorous and systematic.
Congress made it so with its passage of the “Aviation and Transportation Security Act” that created the Transportation Security Administration in October 2001.
The legislation mandated that federal employees be in charge of airport security screening.
TSA, in turn, implemented passenger and baggage screening procedures:
* Passengers are required to show an airline ticket, government-issued identification and go through metal detectors.
* Carry-on bags are x-rayed.
* Checked baggage is conveyed through an explosive detection system.
Over time, additional procedures were added as threat intelligence evolved.
After Richard Reid, the British “shoe bomber,” tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, Fla., on December 22, 2001, TSA began requiring passengers to remove their shoes at security checkpoints.
In August 2006, British authorities arrested 24 people believed to be involved in a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives aboard 10 airliners traveling between the United Kingdom and the United States and Canada.
Thereafter, TSA prohibited carry-on liquids larger than 3 ounces and issued guidelines on how to enclose them for inspection.
The agency also implemented terrorist countermeasures. It mandated fortified cockpit doors, permitted pilots to carry firearms and placed armed and undercover Federal Air Marshals on commercial flights.
But the stepped-up security came at a price.
It raised the level of stress and lessened the pleasure of flying, industry officials and passengers said.
It also cost the federal government, taxpayers and the flying public more than $45 billion in the last eight years to:
* Train, equip and deploy 40,000 Transportation Security Officers.
* Install metal detectors and explosives detection systems.
* Implement a range of security programs, from federal air marshals to the passenger behavior pattern recognition program to Secure Flight, a passenger pre-screening system coordinated between the airlines and TSA.
Besides the federal cost of enhanced security, airport operators around the country invested millions of dollars to bring passenger terminals in compliance with the stricter security standards. Those investments were made with a combination of federal grants and local matching funds.
Eaton, the president of World Travel, said passengers have adapted to the new security regime. But the airport process is particularly onerous on frequent fliers, he said.
“It’s a grind, it’s hard work to be a business traveler,” Eaton said.
Cost of security
At Tulsa International Airport, security-related renovations to the passenger terminal over the past seven years have cost $19.4 million, said Jeff Hough, deputy airports director of engineering and facilities.
Beginning in 2002, construction projects included a $7 million two-story baggage makeup building housing the checked baggage explosives detection systems; a $5.7 million outbound baggage conveyor system that carries baggage from ticket counters to explosives detection machines to the aircraft; the $5.7 million construction of the center terminal security checkpoints and post-security pedestrian boulevards, and the $1 million one-way revolving exit doors on the concourses.
“There have been other things — putting up (construction) barricades, closing gates, an engineering evaluation of the terminal building, the restriction of parking near the terminal,” Hough said. “There have been things through the years that have come and gone, and it’s really difficult to quantify all the nickel-and-dime effects.
“But, basically, $20 million we can point to very easily.”
Multiply $20 million by 400 commercial airports in the U.S. and you have an idea of the scale of investment required to increase security, industry officials say.
Airline travel, then (before 9/11) and now (post 9/11)
Before:
* Passengers required to present tickets, sometimes IDs.
* Random inspection of carry-on and checked baggage.
* Passengers permitted to carry food and beverages aboard aircraft.
* Visitors without tickets permitted on concourses and at boarding gates.
After:
* Passengers required to present ticket or boarding pass and government-issued photo ID.
* X-ray and/or physical inspection of carry-on bags, explosive detection scan of checked baggage.
* Food and beverages prohibited at checkpoints; only liquids in 3-ounce containers permitted.
* Visitors without tickets restricted to pre-security areas.
Source: Transportation Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, news reports.
Top Stories
By World Business Staff
There was quite a tussle among the Tulsa World’s editors and writers to rank the top 10 business stories of the decade.
Heated arguments developed over what to leave in and what to leave out. Opinions were just as passionate when it came to prioritizing the remaining final list.
In the end, its easy to see that the top three picks generally were the stories we devoted the most ink to. The top story, the economic recession, will continue to be our focus into 2010. In particular, we will be watching carefully to see how long it takes the local job market to rebound as the U.S. improves.
Here’s how the Business staff rated the biggest stories of 2000-2009:
1. 2008-2009 recession
The nation, and Tulsa to a lesser extent, go into recession in 2008-09. The U.S. jobless rate soars past 10 percent nationally. Tulsa’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, stays about 3 percent less than that as the community feels the downturn but also shows more resilience than many other metro areas.
2. Crude oil prices
Oil prices skyrocket to $147 a barrel and gasoline prices reach $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008. Prices eventually fall, but the spike creates a long-term change in consumer driving habits.
3. Post-9/11 travel
The travel industry struggles after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. American Airlines, which has its largest maintenance base in Tulsa, is pushed to the verge of bankruptcy and negotiates major concessions with its unions. The industry downturn also helps squash Tulsa-based startup Great Plains Airlines.
 4. SemGroup LP falters
Tulsa-based SemGroup LP, which in just eight years grows to become one of the largest private companies in the U.S., files for bankruptcy in July 2008 after amassing at least $2.4 billion in margin losses on oil futures trades. It emerges from Chapter 11 protection 16 months later.
5. Williams Cos. slump
Williams Cos. comes very close to filing bankruptcy in 2002, following an industrywide slump after the demise of Enron Corp. At the last minute, Williams gets a high-interest, short-term loan from legendary investor Warren Buffett to survive.
6. Citgo heads south
Citgo Petroleum moves its headquarters to Houston. The decision in 2004, by owner Petroleos de Venezuela, costs Tulsa almost 1,000 jobs.
7. Casino growth
Native American tribes enjoy tremendous growth in the casino and entertainment market. Multimillion-dollar complexes such as the Cherokee Nation’s Hard Rock-branded casino and convention center attract crowds from both inside and outside the state.
8. Williams Communications files bankruptcy
Williams Communications Group files bankruptcy early in the decade as the once-booming tech sector shakes out nationally. Eventually, about all that is left of the company locally is its custom-built office space downtown. The high-tech building, which once was intended to hold more than 3,000 workers, becomes City Hall.
 9. ConocoPhillips merger
Bartlesville-based Phillips Petroleum merges with Conoco to form ConocoPhillips. The new company has its headquarters in Houston, continuing a trend of Tulsa-area energy businesses moving to the Texas city.
10. Tulsa’s retail growth
The Tulsa area’s retail sector sees lots of activity, with private developers building the first two major projects on the Arkansas River, Bass Pro Shops locating a store in Broken Arrow and a major new shopping center (Tulsa Hills) opening in south Tulsa.
Contributing to this story were Tulsa World Business staff members Kyle Arnold, Robert Evatt, Nancy Hollingshead, John Stancavage, D.R. Stewart, Rod Walton, Laurie Winslow
End of the world as you know it
By JOHN STANCAVAGE
World Business Editor
At the end of the last decade, I wasn’t at a party wearing a funny hat and preparing to toast the arrival of the new millennium.
Instead, I was here at the office until past midnight, poised to report on the end of the world.
Despite assurances otherwise, we were holding our breath to see if computer systems around the globe would be able to handle the change from 1999 to 2000. Fears were that electronics that were designed to read the last two digits of the date would suddenly think it was 1900.
Most companies made their fixes well in advance of the deadline, however, and the new year arrived uneventfully.
The decade wouldn’t stay so quiet, however, with a shocking terrorist attack and, later, the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Our Business section this Sunday looks back on the past 10 years, focusing in particular on local events or those that had a large impact on Tulsa.
As we spent the last month putting these stories together, a few people and developments were discussed that didn’t fit into any of our lists. Here’s what popped into my mind:
Mover and shaker of the decade: Steve Turnbo. The principal of the Schnake Turnbo Frank public relations firm didn’t make headlines himself, but was behind the scenes for many of the announcements that shaped Tulsa. Turnbo also served as chairman of the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber in 2006.
As the decade drew to a close, Turnbo turned over the day-to-day leadership of his firm to Becky Frank and Russ Florence. Instead of semi-retiring, however, Turnbo only seemed to get busier.
Scam of the decade: Following the downturn caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it always seemed to me that the country recovered a bit too quickly for such a devastating blow. As it turned out, much of that rebound was built on people buying houses they couldn’t really afford and spending too much money on other items as easy credit was the rule. Even President Bush encouraged people to blow their tax rebate checks.
What was essentially a Ponzi scheme in the U.S. housing market began to crack near the end of 2007, triggering a crisis in the financial industry and spreading worldwide to bring on a severe recession. The title of William Cohan’s recent book on the greed and excess at one of the firms involved in the flimsy home-loan business said it all: “House of Cards.”
The scary coda to the situation, as Cohan noted in an interview I did with him last month, is that not a whole lot is being done to make sure the situation doesn’t repeat itself.
Most annoying trend: Meeting for a meal with a business associate or friend, only to watch the person feverishly check e-mails, “Tweet” people and otherwise connect with his or her cyber community while you, present in the flesh, sit awkwardly polishing your silverware.
Perhaps in the next decade, basic etiquette eventually will extend to using portable electronic devices.
Leader to watch: Mike Neal arrived in Tulsa less than four years ago, but has already had a significant impact as president and CEO of the Tulsa Metro Chamber. Neal moved here from Nashville, Tenn., where he headed the chamber there for four years.
Neal brought not only energy and ideas, but enthusiasm and considerable “people skills.” He’s the one leader in town who’s name I hear come up most often in conversations, as in, “That Mike Neal — he’s doing a terrific job.” Let’s hope we can keep him for at least the next 10 years.
Most encouraging trend: Even though the U.S. was ravaged by the recent recession — with cities like Detroit and Las Vegas hit particularly hard — Tulsa showed remarkable resilience. Although jobs were lost here, Tulsa has turned up in the top 10 of a number of national lists for outperforming much of the rest of the nation.
While the energy industry remains vital to Tulsa, the city continues to diversify, which has helped it weather the current economic storm.
In addition, entrepreneurism is flourishing here, with ideas being cooked up on breakfast tables, in garages and at universities all over town. Former Mayor Kathy Taylor, in particular, did much to encourage these risk takers, and Sean Griffin has been a tireless advocate as well.
Those are my thoughts as we bring the decade to a close. On Dec. 31, rather than waiting for disaster, I plan to be at the Mabee Center listening to B.B. King ring in 2010 with some of his signature single-note runs on his famous guitar, Lucille.
Meanwhile, I hope we will have plenty of upbeat news to write about during the next 10 years.
|
