By Dan Verbeck
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-984309.mp3
KANSAS CITY, MO. – Kansas City Mayor Sly James has called for more higher paying jobs for the city. Today he got the pledge of them. Burns & McDonnell engineers and architects will add a thousand jobs, 500 of them locally, between now and 2013.
The new jobs will be added to current work force of three thousand at the employee owned firm.
CEO Greg Graves said most jobs will pay a hundred thousand dollars a year. He credited Missouri incentives, the Business Facility Tax Credit Program. And locally--"the tax incentive plan we've requested from Mayor James is exactly, nothing."
Governor Jay Nixon couldn't resist put it in auto racing terms --"this company, at a time when others are putting on the brakes, has put on the gas. And its going to jump out into the lead not only here but around the world."
The firm CEO says Burns and McDonnell, in its 113 year history, never had a better contract business than first half of this year. And now, he says it invests in itself, as are many of its clients, to grow the economy.
Graves says the jobs will all be technical, in engineering, design and construction. He finds much future business in retrieving and delivery of natural gas and improving the electrical grid in different parts of the country.