By Jeffrey R. Lee, Medill News Service
Two years ago Princeton, a town of about 7,500 two hours west of Chicago, was staring at a potentially grim future. One of the community’s largest employers had just moved its manufacturing facilities to Chattanooga, Tenn.
LCN, a division of Ingersoll Rand Co. Ltd., had just hired a new plant manager for its Princeton factory, and he had a wake-up call for the town’s industrial board.
“He said that if Ingersoll Rand was looking to relocate a new facility, Princeton would not be on the list,” recalled Jason Bird, superintendent of the town’s electric and telecommunications utility. The town simply did not have the communications capacity that modern companies need.
That conversation was enough to scare the town council and the mayor into action. Last October, the town started construction of a $400,000, 12-mile fiber optic network, and on Dec. 15, it announced it would take the fiber optic cable to any customer that wanted it.