#4 - Why the Secrecy? What's Really Behind Project Code Names
Project Enzyme. Project Firestorm. Project Dolphin. Project So Awesome (yes, an actual name). Over the years, names like these have crossed our desks by the hundreds — in any given year, more than 120 potential projects come through our office, and the large majority of them arrive already wearing a code name like one of those. They just show up, we work the project to the best of our abilities, and either they become something real or quietly fade away.
I want to say it was at a Rotary or Chamber presentation somewhere — someone in the crowd said, half-joking, “the EDC is basically the CIA of Catawba County.” I laughed, but I got why they said it — strange code names, projects nobody can talk about, information that seems to surface only after everyone else already knows. For the record, the closest I've ever come to actual espionage was a college internship application to the CIA that went nowhere. The agency clearly knew I wasn't cut out to be the next Jason Bourne.
But the reasoning behind that confidentiality is worth explaining clearly because the confidentiality itself isn't something we naturally would choose.
Whose Confidentiality Is This, Really?
Here's the misconception, and it's an understandable one: people assume the secrecy around a project is our preference - that the EDC (or the local governments) is the one deciding what the public gets to know and when. That's not accurate. The confidentiality is the company's requirement, not ours, and that requirement comes from a few genuinely practical business reasons.
Competitors are always paying attention. If a company is planning a new location, an expansion, or even a consolidation, getting that information out too early can hand a real advantage to whoever they're competing against. There's a human reason too: employees at a company's existing location shouldn't learn about a possible move or closure from a news article before they hear it from their own employer. A code name also helps level the playing field between companies — it keeps a smaller, less recognizable company from getting brushed aside in favor of a bigger name, at least until the project itself gets a fair and equal look. And frankly, some of the reasoning is just strategic timing: a company wants its own plans in order — talking to employees, briefing its board, preparing its own announcement — before the rest of the world finds out.
For publicly traded companies especially, or businesses in highly competitive industries, that requirement sometimes comes formalized: we are occasionally asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement before a company will even share the specifics of what they're considering. When that happens, the obligation is legal, not just courteous.
Who Actually Comes Up with These Names
A question I get asked often, and one that always seems to entertain people: who names these projects? Usually, not us. Most opportunities arrive already named, typically by the state economic development partners we work alongside — the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina or the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, most often — or by the site consultants running the search on a company's behalf. There's often very little logic behind the name itself — I've seen fish, birds, cartoon characters, lawn and garden equipment parts and names that make you scratch your head trying to find the connection. Sometimes a consultant just has a favorite hobby, and every project that consultant touches gets named to match that hobby, whether or not the name has anything to do with what the company actually makes. So don't read too much into a code name; the name itself rarely tells you anything about the company behind the project.
A large majority of the time we don't even know which company sits behind a code name ourselves, at least not at first. On the more tightly held projects, we can work for weeks or months through a site consultant as the go-between, evaluating sites and answering questions about the community without ever learning the company's actual identity until later in the process. That has a real upside though: evaluating a project without knowing the name behind it keeps the process impartial. It's harder to get swayed, one way or the other, by a recognizable corporate name when all we're actually looking at is the jobs, the investment, the economic impact, and the sector fit. Not knowing helps us stay fair to every company that comes through the door, whether it's a household name or one nobody's heard of.
Not Every Code Name Becomes a Real Project
It is also worth saying: most of those 100-plus names that come through in a given year never turn into an announcement at all. A company might choose a different state, decide not to expand after all, or simply go quiet. That's actually very normal, and it's actually part of why confidentiality matters so much — talking publicly about every code name that crosses our desk would mean constantly raising and dashing expectations for a community, over projects that were never going to materialize here in the first place. Confidentiality protects the company, but it also spares this community from a steady stream of false starts.
How We Handle Confidentiality on Our End
Because of all those reasons, we treat information about an active project carefully within our own office, with municipal staff, and with elected officials — who often get their first look at an opportunity through a closed session. A closed session is a portion of a regular City or County meeting where the public isn't present (and grounded in North Carolina General Statutes aka law), typically held near the end of an already-scheduled board/council meeting. Key staff and elected officials attend to hear an overview and ask questions. No vote happens there, and no formal action can be taken there — North Carolina law doesn't allow votes or formal action in closed session. A closed session is strictly a listening and question-asking opportunity for local officials, nothing more.
What Breaking That Trust Would Actually Cost
It's worth hypothetically playing through the scenario - what would happen if we didn't honor that confidentiality? If we talked publicly about a project before the company was ready? It is almost certain that we would lose that project entirely. Reminder from our second Economic Development 101 article back in late July, “0% of a project that goes somewhere else is what we would get”. Zero jobs. Zero invested into the community’s tax base. Zero even for the local businesses that stood to benefit as suppliers or vendors to that new company.
Likewise, we truly do depend on the quality of our relationships with site consultants and state staff. With a great relationship intact, consultants will often look for ways to try and include your community in the consideration for an opportunity (where it makes sense). Break that trust and we would significantly damage that relationship now and for a very long time to come, curtailing the number of opportunities we would even see, especially since site consultants account for at least half of all projects we end up seeing. Even worse, word would spread amongst other consultants, with the fallout spreading well beyond the initial reach of Project “X” and that one consulting group.
When a Project Finally Becomes Public
The timing of when a project becomes public is mostly set by the company itself, but for projects receiving state or local incentive support, there's a fairly predictable pattern. In connection with the company, the Governor's office is typically first to announce a project's real name, usually tied to a state incentive program like the Job Development Investment Grant or the One NC Fund. That timing matters for a legal reason: state and local incentives both require a “but for” clause, where the company affirms that without the incentive support, the project wouldn't be happening here. The state's announcement effectively confirms that connection publicly. Around the same time, our EDC/local government offices put out a press release to local media with the same information, including a note that the relevant City or County government will be considering local incentive support.
Not long after that, a legally required public hearing notice follows - published in local media at least 10 days before the hearing itself (here is a copy of a notice just posted for a 9/1 economic development public hearing), laying out the high-level project details and the local incentive amounts under consideration, along with the date, time, and location where residents can attend and speak.
Why This Matters for You
The confidentiality that can feel frustrating from the outside is actually what keeps opportunities coming to Catawba County in the first place. Companies need real assurance that sensitive information will stay protected before they'll even consider bringing an opportunity here, and that trust is part of what keeps us in consideration against other communities. At the same time, that confidentiality never extends to the vote itself. Once a project reaches the incentive-consideration stage, the public hearing notice and the hearing that follows are your genuine opportunity to see the details and weigh in before your elected officials decide anything - the same public process we walked through in our last two posts on incentives.
Up next, we're pulling back the curtain on the recruitment process itself - how a project actually moves from first contact all the way to a final decision, and everything that happens along the way.
Have a question about this post, or anything else in the series? Send it my way at nhuret@catawbacountync.gov.