During the past 6 years Massachusetts has lost nearly a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs. In Framingham, the subject of WBUR's week-long series, this loss of jobs changed the town dramatically.

The closing of the General Motors plant in 1989 marked the end of Framingham's long history as a manufacturing center. Framingham was once famous as a producer of straw bonnets, shoes, rubber goods, paper, textiles, and finally, Chevys. They're all gone and so are the jobs.

Framingham is now a place for hi-tech companies, professional service firms and retailing outlets. But the town's many low skilled workers still miss the high paying manufacturing jobs of the past. Framingham officials acknowledge that for the town's eco nomy to flourish in the future they'll have to continue attracting new companies and keep the old ones that are already there. But if recent history is any indication, the town has a long way to go.

WBUR'S Bruce Gellerman tells this cautionary story of community needs and corporate realities.

October 18, 1995

MIT professor Amar Bose is a legend in the field of acoustic engineering. His innovative research in speaker design has earned him more than a score of patents. In 1987 Dr. Bose received the coveted "Inventor of the Year Award" for development of the acoustic wave music system. Dr. Bose believes hearing is believing and enjoys showing off his invention.

Even though he's now chairman and technical director, Dr. Bose still gets a thrill tinkering in the laboratories at the company he started 31 years ago. The Bose Corporation remains privately owned allowing Dr. Bose to run the company according to his ph ilosophy.

Bose is a place where creativity, play, and profit abound. The Framingham-based company has plants in 3 states and 4 countries and annual sales of 600 million dollars. Not bad for a company that began as a small Massachusetts start-up selling amplifiers to the U.S. military. Back then, Dr. Bose and Sherwin Greenb latt, a young MIT grad student who became the company's first paid employee, would drive to a New Jersey army base to demonstrate their inventions. It was on one of these trips Greenblatt says, that they serendipitously discovered the perfect place to fulfill Dr. Bose's profitable play philosophy:

The property that caught their eyes was a mountain overlooking the Sudbury River Valley in Framingham. The Story of how Sherwin Greenblatt and Amar Bose discovered the site is now a part of corporate lore both men enjoy retelling.

Dr.Bose bought the mountain property because it fit into his philosophy. For Sherwin Greenblatt, now CEO of the company, there were more practical reasons for locating in Framingham.

The decision to locate Bose headquarters in Framingham has paid off -- for the company and the town. Bose employees 900 people at the mountain and is a major contributor to many of Framingham's educational and cultural projects.

Bose reinvests 100 percent of its profits in research and growing the firm. And it has grown so big that last May the company finally broke ground on the first phase of a four building, one million square foot research and development addition to corpora te headquarters on the mountain in Framingham.

State and local politicians and business leaders were on hand to turn over ceremonial spade-fulls of dirt. M-C-ing the festivities, CEO Sherwin Greenblatt called it a great day for Framingham-and the company. Greenblatt was being diplomatic. The town had helped arrange some of the project's financing. But to get to this point Bose had to travel a long-a very long road.

Amar Bose is also polite when it comes to the sensitive subject.

From the very start, Bose's project ran into a big problem: the town of Framingham. In order to expand on the mountain, Greenblatt had to convince the town to change its zoning regulations. The negotiations were a bureaucratic nightmare. Framingham has a town meeting form of government. It gets high marks as a pure form o f participatory democracy. But efficient? No way.

Two thirds of the 204 meeting members must approve zoning changes, but only after the elected zoning board, and a separate planning board, the selectman, building commission, public safety, and a dozen other committees give their okays. Just about the on ly boards that didn't have to approve the project were Framingham's cemetery committees. There are 2 of them.

Bose CEO Sherwin Greenblatt says, with so many meetings, the company was forced to revise its expansion plans monthly.

There were 6 years of controversies over lighting issues and protracted negotiations on how the buildings should look. Traffic was a big problem. Bose had to conduct two separate traffic studies and twice had to totally revise the plan for vehicle access.

At one point, a zoning board member proposed charging Bose 10 thousand dollars per parking space on the mountain. There were to be a thousand spaces. Again, Greenblatt and his architect went back to the drawing board and devised yet another plan for t he R & D center. This scheme would have employees park their cars at the foot of the mountain and take a shuttle bus to the top.

And patience. Bose officials knew there had to be an easier way. There was. They found it in South Carolina. Greenblatt says it's the place Bose is building its new manufacturing plant:

South Carolina's governor even hired a helicopter to carry Bose officials to potential sites around the state. The state built special access roads to the interstate and, perhaps most importantly, South Carolina didn't hassle Bose over the issue of trees. That's right, trees. Bose CEO Sherwin Greenblatt says Framingham officials were obsessed with them.

John Stasik chaired Framingham's planning and zoning committee during the negotiations with Bose officials:

It is, perhaps, unfair to accuse Framingham's zoning committee of not seeing the forest for the trees. Stasik says the board simply had its own priorities. It was Stasik's idea to charge Bose 10 thousand dollars per parking space. But he says that's wha t it would have cost the town to mitigate traffic congestion. Stasik was a hardliner in the negotiations with Bose, and he's proud of it.

To have companies keep making those improvements, Framingham will have to keep luring new businesses. No matter, Stasik says, Framingham won't follow South Carolina's example. One reason the board lacked the time was because all 5 members were volunteer s, with no experience in planning issues. Still , even without a professional planner, 6 years is a long time to expect a company to wait and negotiate a deal with Framingham, especially when other places are so eager for the business.

State Representative and town selectman John Stefanini says that a company without Bose's track record might never be able to negotiate Framingham's maze of committee fiefdoms. But even Bose, after going through the painful zoning process once, may have to endure the ordeal again. CEO Sherwin Greenblatt says the company must get the town's approval when and if it goes ahead with phase two of its construction plan on the mountain. Bose is the 3rd largest employer in Framingham for the time being.

For WBUR, this is Bruce Gellerman.

Picture of proposed Bose Corporation Building.