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Aaron Ahlburn

Managing Director and Senior Director, Research, JLL
Amy Gerber

Executive Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield
Bill Luttrell

Senior Locations Strategist, Werner Global Logistics, Werner Enterprises
Bradley Migdal

Senior Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
Brian Corde

Managing Partner, Atlas Insight
Dan Levine

Practice Leader, Location Strategies and Economic Development, Oxford Economics, Inc.
Dan White

Senior Economist, Moody's Analytics
Dean J. Uminski, CEcD

Partner, Crowe Horwath
Dennis Cuneo

Partner , Fisher & Phillips
Eric Stavriotis

Senior Vice President, Advisory & Transaction Services, CBRE, Inc.
Gregory Burkart

Managing Director and City Leader, Site Selection & Incentives Advisory , Duff & Phelps, LLC
H. Robert Boehringer, III

Managing Director, Global Location & Expansion Services, KPMG
Josh Bays

Principal, Site Selection Group, LLC
Joshua Wright

VP, Economic and Workforce Development, Emsi
Kate Crowley

Principal & Negotiated incentives Practice Leader, Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP
Les Cranmer

Senior Managing Director, Savills Studley
Marc Beauchamp

President & CEO, The CAI Global Group
Margy Sweeney

Founder and CEO, Akrete, Inc.
Minah Hall

Managing Director, True Partners Consulting LLC
Paul Naumoff

Principal, National Director of Tax Credits & Incentives Advisory Services, EY Global/Americas
Scott Kupperman

Founder, Kupperman Location Solutions
Stephen Gray

CEO, Gray Construction

ChiefExecutive.net: Best/Worst States for Business 2011

ChiefExecutive.net

5/17/2011

Based on the rankings of 500+ CEOs, Chief Executive magazine has named its best and worst states for business for 2011. The executives considered such factors as taxation, government regulations, quality of the work force, as well as quality of life. According to this latest poll of CEOs, Texas maintains its first place ranking - over the seven-year course of the study - as the best state in which to do business. With a tax-friendly environment (second-lowest taxes in the nation), ease of regulations, and ample labor force (it enjoys the highest inward net migration rate of any state), Texas ranked first with the CEOs.

Ranking second - for the second year in a row - is North Carolina, followed by Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia. North Carolina received high marks for its tax and regulatory environment, as well as the quality of its labor force, and especially for its living environment.

The states posting the largest gains in the rankings since 2010 are Wisconsin and Louisiana; and Louisiana and Oklahoma showed the greatest improvement over the last five years. Louisiana officials have worked to make their state more tax- and business-friendly over the last few years, and its efforts are being noticed.

Now how does this compare to Area Development's Gold and Silver Shovel awards for 2011, i.e., where did the large investments along with new jobs go last year? Interestingly, the states recognized by our publication as the top recipients of investment and generators of new jobs last year are Indiana, Michigan, and South Carolina. Indiana and South Carolina were ranked as the sixth and eighth best states for business, respectively, by the CEOs. However, the CEOs polled considered Michigan the fifth-worst state for business.

Area Development awarded Silver Shovels for their efforts to garner new investment and jobs to Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kansas, and Mississippi. Read the Chief Executive report to see how their findings compare with ours.