Sometimes persistence pays off. Roy Hunter recently celebrated his sixth anniversary as executive director for Marshall-Saline Development Corporation and he is still working to make one of his first projects a success.

At Tuesday's meeting of the MSDC Board of Directors, Hunter reported on progress being made to bring a soy sauce production facility to Marshall.

Hunter said while many of the principal parties still have difficulty traveling to and from China, the Zhenji Brewing Company is still interested in building a facility in Marshall. With the renewed activity, the company now wants to update its marketing plan, now about three and a half years old. In addition, company officials have requested MSDC's help in hiring a firm to assist in nationwide marketing of its products.

"They're having trouble reaching all the markets they'd like to reach," Hunter said.

In addition to the soy sauce project, Hunter updated the board on several others in the works.

State funding is proving to be the stumbling block for a project to relocate a Texas-based company from Houston to Marshall. Hunter said if things go as planned funding from the Department of Economic Development could help, but nothing is official yet.

"We can make the offer, but the funds aren't there until they put it in the budget," he said.

As a result, it is unlikely anything will happen with the project until next year. However, company officials have been understanding of the issue, Hunter said.

A second distribution project would be a shorter move, with the company relocating from St. Charles. Hunter said he met Monday with representatives of the company to discuss property, incentives and labor concerns.

"Their only drawback is they'd like to be closer to Kansas City," he said.

Hunter said he made an effort to explain that the costs of trucking goods from Marshall to Kansas City would be less than paying the higher hourly wages sought by Kansas City employees.

In other business, Hunter said MSDC will be changing cell phone service providers. He said MSDC has been with its current company since he started, but recent overcharges led him to explore other options. By changing now, MSDC should be able to cut its cell phone charges in half, Hunter said.

Contact Chris Post at

marshallhealth@socket.net