In the early months of 2003, while I was at the South Carolina Department of Commerce, we received an RFI from a consulting firm faor Project Olympus.
What followed became one of the most remarkable site selection processes in South Carolina history.
There was a tropical storm. There were some calculated gambles. There were more than a few moments when we thought we were finished.
Today, roughly 8,000 South Carolinians build some of the world's most technologically advanced commercial aircraft in Charleston. It is one of only three places in the world where twin-aisle commercial aircraft are assembled.
Project Olympus was ultimately revealed to be Boeing's search for a final assembly site for the 787 Dreamliner.
The requirements were extraordinary. The project needed roughly 250 acres adjacent to an airport capable of accommodating a fully loaded 747. It also required a demonstrated ability to transport oversized aircraft components from an ocean port to the assembly site by rail.
You've got a problem with the site, and if you don't do something in the next 24 hours you're going to be eliminated.
Initially, South Carolina proposed the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. Transporting wing and fuselage sections would have required transferring cargo from an ocean-going vessel to a river barge before moving it down the Intracoastal Waterway. It was technically feasible, but hardly efficient.
We suggested Charleston as an alternative but were told Boeing believed the runway was too short for a 747. The site would only work, we were told, if the state committed to extending the runway by 1,000 feet.
That concern disappeared during Boeing's first visit, when the project team watched three fully loaded 747s depart nearby Charleston Air Force Base on missions to the Middle East. The state already owned a short-line railroad serving the Port of Charleston, and extending it to the airport appeared achievable despite environmental challenges.
This was before anyone had even discussed the Dreamlifter—the modified 747 cargo aircraft Boeing would eventually develop specifically to transport 787 components around the world.
The greatest challenge wasn't transportation.
It was the site itself.
The transaction took years. The decision took one email.
At the turn of the 20th century, the property had been a phosphate strip mine. Aside from the jungle that had reclaimed it, the site looked much as it had when mining stopped decades earlier. Earthen mounds stood 10 to 15 feet high across the property. Water filled the trenches between them.
And there were banana spiders.
Big banana spiders.
Walking more than a few yards without a machete was nearly impossible.
Did I mention the banana spiders?
Then came the weather.
The engineering team evaluating the property was scheduled to arrive on a Sunday in September and tour the site Monday morning before flying to a competing location that afternoon.
Instead, a tropical storm settled over Charleston that weekend.
8,000
By Monday morning, water covered portions of the property, and the parking lot at the bottom of the site sat ankle-deep in floodwater. Despite the conditions, the Boeing team insisted on walking the site.
The airport supplied four-wheel-drive trucks and rain gear, and off we went.
Shortly after entering the property, a tree crashed down behind us, blocking our route back. The only way out was forward.
Had the airport manager not delayed the team's flight—and had the maintenance staff not produced sheets of plywood so everyone could cross a flooded drainage ditch—the project team likely would have missed its flight.
The project team got on the plane soaking wet with mud up to their knees.
Instead, they boarded the airplane soaked, covered in mud to their knees, and headed to the next state.
Back in Columbia, we believed South Carolina had a compelling case.
We were, and remain, a right-to-work state. Our workforce training system was among the nation's best. The technical college system would eventually become one of the few organizations outside Boeing authorized to teach Boeing certification courses.
None of that mattered if the site itself failed.
After the project team's debrief, I received a phone call from the consulting firm that has stayed with me ever since.
"You've got a problem with the site," the consultant said. "If you don't do something in the next 24 hours, you're going to be eliminated."
He was a friend. Maybe he was bluffing.
After that site visit, I wasn't willing to take the chance.
Around 11 p.m. that night, after saying a quick prayer, we sent an email committing the state to invest $30 million in wetlands mitigation and site preparation.
The commitment worked.
250
At least, it worked well enough to keep us alive.
Boeing ultimately selected Washington for the 787's initial final assembly line.
On paper, we lost.
But the story wasn't over.
Within a year, Vought Aircraft and Alenia announced plans to invest more than $500 million in a Charleston facility to manufacture two fully integrated sections of the 787 for shipment to Everett aboard the newly developed Dreamlifter. Boeing acquired the site in 2009, announced a second 787 final assembly line later that year, and by 2020 had consolidated all 787 production in Charleston.
The project we thought we'd lost became the foundation of one of the world's most important aerospace manufacturing campuses.
The project we thought we had lost became the foundation of one of the world's most important aerospace manufacturing campuses.
Looking back, the biggest lesson wasn't that persistence always wins.
Sometimes it doesn't.
The lesson was that site selection is rarely a single decision or a single project. Relationships matter. Credibility matters. So does a willingness to solve problems even when the outcome is uncertain.
Had we walked away after losing Olympus, Charleston might never have become Boeing's home for the 787.
Economic development often rewards communities that stay engaged long after they think the opportunity has passed.
Sometimes the project you lose is the one that changes everything.
