By James S. Tyree
The Oklahoman

Gov. Brad Henry and state Commerce and Tourism Secretary Natalie Shirley on Monday visited Norman for the groundbreaking for a Hitachi Computer Products warehouse scheduled to open about Oct. 1.

The 200,000-square-foot storage and distribution facility, coupled with the Hitachi manufacturing plant at 1800 E Imhoff Road that opened in 1986, will consolidate the company’s North and South American supply chain operations in Norman.

The manufacturing plant employs about 300 people, and the warehouse is expected to add 75 jobs in Norman.

"Today, we celebrate Hitachi’s decision to grow in Oklahoma,” Henry said.

"Oklahoma is a great place to conduct and grow business, and this is a reflection of our business-friendly policies and economic development tools,” he said.

Hitachi Computer Products (America) has a distribution center in Indianapolis that until recently served Asian markets along with North and South America.

Yoshinori Okami, executive vice president of parent company Hitachi Data Services, said the company decided to streamline when a new Asian distribution center opened in Singapore that reduced operations in the United States.

Henry and Shirley said months of closed-door meetings between Hitachi officers and the Norman Economic Development Coaltion, city and county government officials — and a new state economic development financing program that took effect in 2009 — kept the company in Norman.

"Hitachi is the first company to take advantage of the Oklahoma Economic Development Pooled (Finance) Program, which proved to be a critical factor to bringing this project here,” Shirley said.

Norman Mayor Cindy Rosenthal thanked the company for its community support in addition to creating jobs.

Rosenthal cited Hitachi’s involvement as a United Way Pacesetter along with its support for a teacher-exchange program between Norman Public Schools and Japan, the Pioneer Library System’s summer reading program and for giving more than $1 million to the University of Oklahoma.