$1.9M in Tax Breaks Awarded to A.T. Cross While Former CEO Advises Commerce Corporation
GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle
$1.9M in Tax Breaks Awarded to A.T. Cross While Former CEO Advises Commerce Corporation
"The Board approved $1.2 million in Qualified Jobs Tax Incentive credits, $400,000 in Rebuild Rhode Island real estate credits, up to $67,000 in sales tax incentives and $200,000 in First Wave Closing Fund grants, the first award of this program, for A.T. Cross Co," said Commerce in a release on Monday. "The company, which currently employs 105 people, plans to move its operations to the Foundry Campus in Providence and add 35 jobs."
On April 27, GoLocal reported that Charles “Chad” Mellen, the former Chief Executive Officer of A.T. Cross Company from 2013 to 2015 "is reportedly “volunteering” at the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation and is now working out of the office of the dismissed Betsy Wall."
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTCommerce said on Monday that Mellen had no role in the process, or outcome of awarding the tax incentives to his former company.
"[Mellen] is in no way, shape, or form, involved in this decision. It predates him [at Commerce] and he had no involvement whatsoever with this," said Commerce spokesperson Kayla Rosen.
Recent Cross Moves at Commerce
GoLocal reported in April:
Two weeks after initially inquiring about Mellen's role, [Rosen] provided GoLocal with the following statement the day after this article was published.
“Secretary Pryor reached out to Chad Mellen, former CEO of A.T. Cross Company, and invited him to serve as a volunteer advisor on a short-term basis at the Commerce Corporation, assisting with management of projects in different parts of the agency. At Secretary Pryor’s request, Chad has started by helping with our marketing efforts, given his expertise in the area. We’re grateful that Chad has stepped up and offered his valuable volunteer service.”
Governor Gina Raimondo and the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation Board of Directors approved the approximately $1.9 million in tax credits and incentives on Monday.
“Growing businesses, especially ones with a deep history in our state, is essential to Rhode Island’s comeback,” said Raimondo. “These tools encourage Rhode Island businesses to expand here in the Ocean State, creating more jobs and improving our economy. This deal with A.T. Cross shows that our programs are working and we have momentum.”
“We're proud that A.T. Cross, which has been located in Rhode Island for 170 years, has decided to expand right here in the Ocean State," said Pryor. "We're committed to helping Rhode Island companies, which are frequently offered enticing opportunities elsewhere in the country, to invest and grow right here in our state. We’re especially pleased that A.T. Cross has proposed to expand its workforce by approximately one-third in this state.”
A.T. Cross' current CEO Robert Baird weighed in.
"A.T. Cross has been a proud Rhode Island employer for 170 years. Staying in Rhode Island was important both to honor our heritage and to continue to build our future with our employees," said Baird. "The incentives provided by the State of Rhode Island will allow us to invest in our business and more importantly, our talented employees, as well as hire more Rhode Islanders over time."
The Qualified Jobs Incentive program "encourages new job creation by providing a base tax credit for companies relocating to the state and creating a minimum number of new jobs and for current Rhode Island companies growing their in-state workforce. The annual base tax credit is $2,500 for each new full-time job created, with possible add-ons of up to $5,000 per job if specific criteria are met."
The First Wave Closing Fund provides linchpin financing unavailable from other sources to close transactions of a critical or catalytic nature. The money can be used for a variety of purposes, including working capital, equipment purchases, furnishings, construction and permanent financing.
Main Photo: Flickr/EdSaintJores
National Press Critique RI's Embarrassing Tourism Campaign - 2016
New York Times
A world-renowned designer was hired. Market research was conducted. A $5 million marketing campaign was set. What could go wrong?
Everything, it turns out.
The slogan that emerged — “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer” — left people confused and spawned lampoons along the lines of “Dumb and Dumber.” A video accompanying the marketing campaign, meant to show all the fun things to do in the state, included a scene shot not in Rhode Island but in Iceland. The website featured restaurants in Massachusetts.
Boston Globe
After the slogan’s unveiling, the blunders just kept coming. A promotional video to accompany the campaign included a shot of a skateboarder in front of a distinctive building that turned out to be the famous Harpa concert hall, located almost 2,500 miles away, in Iceland.
The new website erroneously boasted that Little Rhody is home to 20 percent of the country’s historic landmarks. And officials needed to remove three names from its restaurant database, after realizing the information was so outdated that two of the restaurants aren’t open right now.
City Lab
“Cooler & Warmer.” It took me roughly 30 minutes of reading about Rhode Island’s new tourism catchphrase to realize that “cool” is a double entendre—as in, the occasional temperature of the Ocean State, but also “hip and awesome.” And I still didn’t quite get it? This was not a good sign. I may be dense, but lordy, was I not alone.
Time
The Rhode Island Tourism Division had to pull its latest video shortly after it was posted online Tuesday because it contained footage shot in Iceland. The three-second scene in question shows a man doing a skateboard trick outside of the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, the country’s capital.
IndieWhip, the company that edited the video, and the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, which hired the firm, have apologized for the error. “The footage in question is of a Rhode Island skateboarder, filmed by a Rhode Islander,” IndieWhip added in a statement.
Forbes
A Big Price Tag Puts a Target on Your Back. Rhode Island spent a reported $550,000 to develop the “Cooler & Warmer” campaign. Development costs for the Florida and Washington campaigns cost $380,000 and $422,000, respectively. That’s before the first piece of media was ever purchased.
My advertising agency brethren will argue you have to invest money at the start of the campaign to “get it right.” But from my perspective, the above numbers seem exorbitant for a program built on public dollars. And in each case, an angry electorate agreed.
Creating a great “place marketing” campaign is a difficult job. Don’t make it more difficult by ignoring the lessons from states like Rhode Island, Florida and Washington.
