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They say you have to be good and lucky to be successful in business. The South Carolina Upstate certainly qualifies for the category of the "good and lucky." With a skilled work force steeped in the Southern tradition of a strong work ethic to complement its abundance of natural resources, the Upstate is considered by the world's manufacturers to be one of the top areas to locate a new manufacturing plant. 
Greenville boasts one of the most protected and pristine water supplies found in the country. The Table Rock Reservoir and the North Saluda Reservoir, which supply the drinking water for Greenville, have a combined 45 square miles of watershed.
The two water reservoirs hold 39 billion gallons of water to meet Greenville's 54-million-gallon daily water consumption. The Table Rock Reservoir is located in northern Pickens County. The North Saluda Reservoir is located in northern Greenville County. Greenville can also draw water from Lake Keowee.
Daniel A. Okum, professor of environmental engineering at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said, "You've got something very precious. You have something as pristine as you can get, and you know it's going to stay that way. It's very rare for watersheds not to have some level of development." Lyn Stovall, General Manager of the Greenville Water System, said, "We are the only water system in the United States that has the degree of ownership and control of the land protecting its source of water."
The Greenville Water Commission, more than 70 years ago, had the foresight to secure a water source and protective watershed for Greenville. Their vision, and subsequent actions to secure a pristine water supply for Greenville, now allows Greenville to grow without fear of an inadequate or substandard water supply for its residents.
The topography of the Upstate includes the mountainous northern sector that contains the lower reaches of the Southern Appalachians and the middle and southern sectors of the upstate that contain mostly level terrain. The northern mountainous section affords the Upstate residents with some great outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and sightseeing, while the level terrain in the middle and lower Upstate areas provide the level building sites needed for manufacturing plants. 
The transportation infrastructure needed to attract manufacturers is also in place. Interstate-26 and I-85 crisscross the Upstate, providing fast and easy access to all sectors of the Upstate. The I-85 corridor is considered one of the choice manufacturing areas in the U. S.
The Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport has been expanded into a world-class airport, and handled over 1,500,000 passengers in 2000.
The GSP International Airport has also expanded the length of its runways to accommodate the increased traffic and to handle cargo jets. Since the local BMW plant uses Boeing 747 cargo planes to deliver parts, the expansion was necessary. A fully loaded Boeing 747 cargo jet requires a longer runway than a passenger Boeing 747 jet. 
And luck, well the Upstate has its share of that, too. The luck comes in the form of the Transco natural gas pipeline that traverses the U. S. from the natural gas fields in Texas to New York State. The Transco natural gas pipeline was built 51years ago and just happens to travel across the Upstate following I-85 north through North Carolina. This pipeline provides the Upstate with a plentiful supply of natural gas at either retail or wholesale prices.
Manufacturers who choose to locate in the Upstate are able to avoid the cost of installing natural gas pipelines over long distances. They can simply tap into the existing gas lines that Piedmont Natural Gas Co. already has in place. Or, if they are a company that operates a gas-fired steam turbine electric generating plant, they can purchase the gas wholesale by tapping directly into the Transco natural gas pipeline.
This abundant supply of natural gas has also attracted electric power generating companies that operate gas-fired steam turbines. Currently, the Upstate has four new gas-fired steam turbine electric generating plants either under construction or about to begin construction.
Those plants include the 800 megawatts Santee Cooper plant, the 800 megawatts SkyGen Energy plant, the 640 megawatt GenPower plant and the 900 megawatt Entergy power plant.
The GE Power Systems plant, located in Greenville, manufactures the steam turbines used in these types of electric power generating plants, and supplied the turbines for these four new plants.
For the Upstate, it pays to be good and lucky.
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