Omaha World Herald on November 5: Business departures no longer a crisis for Nebraska
On the highway of economic development, some ideas get run over.
Take, for example, the state-supported pet food startup in the 1980s that planned to use roadkill as a raw material.
“It was a disaster,” said Don Wesely of Lincoln, a state senator at the time and now a lobbyist.
But then Nebraska was battling an economic crisis, and state government was trying desperately to help.
Banks were failing. Farmers were losing their land. Manufacturers were closing small-town plants. Thousands of young people were leaving the state. Omaha had lost Enron Corp. and its 3,000 corporate jobs. ConAgra Foods was considering moving out of Omaha.
Today, 30 years later, ConAgra’s headquarters is leaving, but this time it’s not a crisis.