Amid hundreds of screaming fans, theatrical smoke and pounding music, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday strolled down a catwalk at the Fashion Show mall.
He followed the requisite waves and thumb-pumping with a brief speech pitching the joys of doing business in the Golden State.
"I'm here to promote the great state of California," Schwarzenegger said. "I'm here to let everyone know California wants your business."
It was, he said, the first stop on what will be an international tour promoting California. The campaign also includes billboards in 10 U.S. cities, including one that went up on the Las Vegas Strip near the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino Wednesday morning.
The campaign comes after years of complaints from California businesses that the cost of doing business in that state is too high. Schwarzenegger built his election campaign around the need to improve business conditions.
"It was too expensive to do business in California," he said. "That is changing."
Theatrics aside, Mitchell Grief said the effort comes too late for his company. Grief last year moved his manufacturing business -- along with 125 Coast Converters employees -- to North Las Vegas. With the move, Grief said his annual workers' compensation insurance costs were trimmed from $680,000 to $190,000.
"There's nothing he has done that would have stopped me from moving," he said Wednesday, adding that the slow progress is not the governor's fault.
"While I give him a tremendous amount of kudos for trying, he's got a long road to hoe," he said.
Schwarzenegger touted efforts to bring down workers' compensation costs -- as well as efforts to rein in lawsuits against employers and to cut energy costs -- as key points of his overall business strategy.
Mark Mosher, executive director of the California Commission for Jobs and Economic Growth, said energy costs and litigation reform were works in progress. However, reforms already enacted on workers' compensation should reduce costs by as much as 20 percent, he said.
Grief, who still has some sales operations in California, disputed the claim.
"I have heard people saying that it will only stop the bleeding," he said, adding that in his final years in California workers' compensation costs rose 300 percent.
A headline in the San Diego Union-Tribune Wednesday morning proclaimed "Businesses chafe at workers' comp: Promised rate cuts too small, they moan."
Nevada economic development officials reveled in Schwarzenegger's visit as a validation of the success the state has had in luring away California businesses.
"I guess this (Schwarzenegger visit) reinforces the fact that Nevada has been successful in attracting California businesses," said Bob Shriver, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Economic Development.
Somer Hollingsworth, chief executive of the Nevada Development Authority, said the presence of the California governor in Las Vegas ultimately serves to generate headlines for Nevada.
"What they did was promote Las Vegas," Hollingsworth said. "We won."
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman had a similar reaction to Schwarzenegger's visit.
"He helps us. This is a compliment to us," Goodman said.
"I think he's a great guy. Lots of fun. But he's a failure as far as trying to get businesses out of my city," Goodman said of Schwarzenegger, who has a spot on the mayor's office wall in a picture with Goodman, former Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera, who is facing corruption charges, and representatives from the Boys & Girls Club of America.
Goodman said if he was in the governor's place he might be doing the same thing, saying Schwarzenegger is only trying to do what's best for his community.
But Goodman said the governor won't have any luck because California has problems with its tax structure, workers' compensation costs, and other issues, while Nevada has no personal income tax and "no corporate income tax to speak of."
"There's no comparison," the mayor said.
In recent months, trading card maker Upper Deck Co. has received state tax incentives to move 75 warehousing and distribution jobs to North Las Vegas from Carlsbad, Calif. Additionally, May Manufacturing LLC received incentives to move its Artesian Spa manufacturing business out of Victorville, Calif., creating 42 new North Las Vegas jobs.
Pacer Stacktrain, a national shipping and distribution company, also has indicated that it could bring 350 jobs and its Concord, Calif., headquarters to Henderson.
All of the companies have cited Nevada's favorable business climate as reason for their interest.
"If (Schwarzenegger) didn't view Nevada as a threat or competition, he wouldn't be here," said Greg Bortolin, spokesman for Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn.
Still, Mosher said that California has plenty of advantages.
"Let's face it, California is the gateway to the Pacific Rim," he said. "Nevada is what? The gateway to Idaho."
Mosher also pointed out a recent Wired magazine report listing the world's top 40 most innovative companies. California was home to 14 of those firms. He also said the state is home to $55 billion in annual industrial and academic research and development spending.
With that, while Nevada has tapped smaller companies, technology giants such as Apple Computer Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Cisco Systems Inc. are probably unlikely to leave the confines of Silicon Valley.
"Never say never," said Keith Schwer, an economist for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and head of the Center for Business and Economic Research. "But they have a great advantage."
John Peddie, chief operating officer for the Nashville-based warehouse and distribution company Ozburn-Hessey Logistics, also said that California has some undeniable advantages.
The company has 2 million square feet of warehouse space and 400 employees in Reno where it manages logistics for several clients. Last year the company moved one of those clients -- home-based medical products maker Invacare -- to Southern California. The move put the logistics base close to the Port of Long Beach, where goods manufactured in the Far East arrived.
Peddie, who was brought to the Las Vegas event by the California jobs commission, said the move saved the company as many as two days in product shipping.
"We just had to look at the cost analysis," said. "It is a definite advantage depending on the logistics of your shipping chain. ... With more and more outsourcing going to the Far East, you have to be located near a port."
The company now has 450,000 square feet and 100 employees in Rancho Cucamonga. Both of those figures are expected to double within a year.
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