Earlier this year, heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. chose Athens, GA, as the site for a new factory to assemble small tractors and excavators. The company will be reshoring some 1,400 jobs to the new facility from an existing plant in Japan.
The company picked Georgia from a list of more than 20 states. Ironically, that list did not include Illinois, home to Caterpillar’s corporate headquarters and three of its assembly plants. It wasn’t the first time Cat had snubbed Illinois, either.