Rick Perry, Texas's Star Business Recruiter, Will Be Missed

In January, Thomas Hook, chief executive officer of Greatbatch, was looking to move his growing medical device company from Buffalo to a place with warmer winters and lower taxes. He was all but settled on Florida when officials from Frisco, a city north of Dallas, cold-called to pitch the virtues of Texas. One conversation in particular helped close the deal. Texas Governor Rick Perry phoned to tell Hook how much he wanted Greatbatch to call Texas home. “He reached out directly,” says Chris Knospe, Greatbatch’s head of government relations. “It’s nice to be wanted.” In May the 3,300-employee company announced its move to Frisco.

The last memory most Americans have of Perry is his exit from the 2012 presidential race after forgetting during a debate one of the three federal agencies he’d eliminate if elected. (“Oops,” he said in an understatement.) On July 8, Perry announced he won’t seek reelection in 2014, ending the longest current tenure of any U.S. governor. Whatever his shortcomings as a presidential candidate, Perry’s Texas record isn’t easily reduced to caricature. The state had a less bruising recession than the rest of the U.S., and even his most unforgiving critics concede there’s one very visible part of the job he excels at: selling Texas as the best place in the nation to do business.