This Virginia shop runs on Twin Cities time

There's been some hand-wringing in Roanoke, Va., ever since Darren Jackson took over as CEO of Advance Auto Parts in January.

First, Jackson, a former executive at Richfield-based Best Buy Co. Inc., decided not to run the auto parts retailer from its Roanoke headquarters.

Instead, he stayed in the Twin Cities, where he had a home and kids in school, and began making plans to set up a regional center as he staged what he called a "turnaround and transformation" of the nation's second-largest auto parts chain.

In short order, he hired three senior executives who, like him, once worked at Best Buy, owned homes in the metro area and wanted to stay put.

Then, last month, Jackson announced that plans for the regional center had tripled, from the 20 to 30 jobs he originally proposed. The center, which likely will be in Bloomington, will employ 100 workers in merchandising and operations -- with 40 of the jobs coming from Roanoke.

As cities and towns fight to bring employers to their districts -- particularly ones that might expand in the current tight economy -- the Advance Auto Parts case illustrates the simpler side of economic development tug-of-wars: Sometimes it's about what the boss wants.

In the world of out-of-state executives, Advance Auto Parts is certainly not alone, and sometimes Twin Cities companies have been in Roanoke's shoes. Ameriprise executives, including CEO Jim Cracchiolo, live or operate much of the time out of New York City, as does Jay Fishman, CEO of St. Paul-based Travelers. Former Lenox CEO Susan Engle kept two homes, one in Minneapolis, the other on the East Coast.

Kizilos said e-mail and advances in teleconferencing make it possible for top managers to hold virtual meetings.

These days, whenever Advance spokeswoman Shelly Whitaker sends out a news release about an executive hiring, she makes sure she includes whether they'll be based out of Roanoke or the Twin Cities. It was the first question people asked anyway, she said.

A big airport -- and talent

Jackson said he has no plans to relocate company headquarters, which have been based in the southwestern Virginia city since 1932, when Arthur Taubman started a chain of home and auto parts stores.

Three weeks ago the CEO held town hall meetings with the Roanoke workers to help ease their fears.

Having a major airport here is also a plus, as Roanoke's airport recently was named one of the country's 100 most endangered.

"If you add up all the revenues of Target, Best Buy, Supervalu, General Mills and so on, it's about $200 billion," Jackson said. "In Roanoke, it's $2 billion.

"So it's 100-to-1 in terms of our opportunity to look across the Twin Cities to see if there's talent that will help us go even faster and more effectively."

Doubling sales

Indeed, with the stock up 19 percent since he took over and analysts upbeat about the road ahead, Jackson has wide latitude for now. He hopes to double revenue, from $4.8 billion in 2007 to $10 billion in the next five years, using many of the business tenants he and the other Minnesota-hewn executives learned from Best Buy.

Hoping to go 50/50

Jackson, who was Best Buy's chief financial officer for seven years, aims to create a 50/50 balance by focusing on helping customers find what they need, as opposed to selling parts.

At a recent tour of an Advance Auto Parts store in Savage, Jackson pointed to a brochure that had details about a dashboard global positioning system navigation unit for the car as a case in point.

"Do you know how many GPS systems will be sold in the U.S. this year?" he asked. "Four billion dollars' [worth]. It goes right in the car. But you couldn't find it in any of our stores. But we sell tachometers. Do you know what a tachometer is?" (We looked it up: A device that measures how fast the engine's crankshaft is rotating, in RPM, or revolutions per minute.)

So far the strategy is working. In the company's second-quarter earnings, announced Thursday, same-store sales had grown nearly 3 percent, and earnings per share of 79 cents outpaced analyst expectations that were in the 70- to 72-cent range.