Business View Magazine - November 2016

116 Business View Magazine - November 2016 residents and thousands more who commute to the city for work, every day. “We have 17,000 people a day who drive into Gallatin for jobs and only about 10,000 that drive out,” says Fenton. “So, we have a higher daytime population than nighttime. It’s been a long- established fact that people come to Gallatin for jobs.” Some of the city’s major employers include the 2.7 million square-foot GAP Clothing Distribution Center and several tier one automotive suppliers who have added hundreds of thousands of square feet of new construction and several hundred more jobs. “And just opening and starting to produce is the Beretta Arms Company that moved out of Accokeek, Maryland and relocated here to Gallatin,” Fenton says. “They looked at 80 sites around the southeast, before choosing Gallatin. Their general counsel said, ‘Everything they needed, they found here.’” “A large part of that was the fact that the city invested in itself,” Fenton asserts. “It purchased land for an in- dustrial center, and spent the money on it. It put roads in; utilities were in place also. So that investment in itself was directly responsible for the oldest, family- owned business in the world – they’ll be having their 490th anniversary here in October – a worldwide, rec- ognized brand name, to come to Gallatin. We are also the corporate headquarters for Servpro Franchises, worldwide, and the North American headquarters for Samick Music. Several companies with a worldwide footprint are based here in Gallatin.” The city is also home to Volunteer State Community College, one of