In the inaugural episode of The Ribbon Cut, co-hosts Susan Donkers and Charles Houser sit down to explore the long, often invisible process behind site selection and economic development. They share the behind the scenes on global investment decisions and infrastructure strategy, revealing how “ribbon cut” moments often come after years of unseen effort.
Charles talks about his path from long-distance telecom entrepreneurship to co-founding Green Cloud Technologies, an early cloud infrastructure company that grew to become the fastest-growing business in South Carolina by 2016. He highlights the evolution of the industry, from dial-up internet to the rise of data centers and how demand for digital infrastructure has reshaped development needs.
Susan shares her equally winding path, from studying construction management to working on military data centers post-9/11, to joining a global architecture and engineering firm, and ultimately pivoting into site selection through a chance encounter at a Greenville networking event. She reveals how her work at Global Location Strategies aimed not only to support client deals but also to improve the transparency and speed of the site selection process through technology.
Together, they discuss the fragmented nature of the site selection industry, the need for standardization, and the enormous role local and regional economic developers play, often behind the scenes. They also talk about the creation of Strata Platforms and its mission to help underserved regions become more competitive by leveraging technology to speed up deal-making.
The episode wraps with a nod to their home in Greenville, SC, offering visitors travel tips, and a reflection on why they chose the podcast name “The Ribbon Cut”, a tribute to the celebration that marks the end of years of collaboration, persistence, and progress.