Kickstart: This Lego build is going to need a lot of bricks

Do we write a lot about Lego in Kickstart? Yes. Yes, we do.

Because, let's face it, Lego is a top brand in the plastics industry and is probably one of the few that people outside the industry connect with. It's also one of the few big consumer brands that still closely controls its in-house molding.

So when the Danish toymaker makes big moves — such as investing in research to find a more sustainable version of ABS for its bricks — it's big news. That's especially true for the June 15 announcement that Lego is building its first U.S. injection molding plant.

The $1 billion project near Richmond, Va., will employ more than 1,000 and operate as carbon neutral, with a massive solar energy field on the site to supply 100 percent of the plant's electricity.

Both the investment and the electricity source will be interesting to follow, but I'll do my best to avoid turning Kickstart into an all-Lego news blog.

But speaking of new locations and site selection, historic community roots are being ignored by some large companies.

Caterpillar Inc., the maker of earthmoving and other big construction equipment, has Illinois roots dating to 1910 when a precursor company opened in Peoria. But the company abandoned that site in 2017 in favor of Deerfield, Ill. Now it's abandoning Illinois altogether to move to Irving, Texas.

It's another big loss for the state, which earlier this year saw Boeing Co. announce it was moving from Chicago to Arlington, Va. — after previously vacating its longtime home of Seattle.

Moves like those are about more than local goverments and tax breaks, says Harry Kraemer Jr., the former CEO of medical supplier Baxter International Inc. and now a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a partner with investment group Madison Dearborn Partners.

"Talent is becoming more mobile," Kraemer told our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business. "If you've got to hire 1,000 young people over the next five years, where do you want to be? What cities do you want to be in or not be in? A lot of people are moving to Texas, to Florida, to Atlanta, to Nashville. They're moving places people perceive as upwardly mobile [and] safer."

Perhaps Lego's solar operation may provide some career ideas for students in the STEM fields.

An eighth-grade student at St. Patrick's School in Hudson, Wis., took top honors in a Young Innovator Contest, winning a visit to Minnesota Rubber & Plastics for her 12-person class for an "engineer for a day" event, along with $2,500 in STEM supplies for her school.

The student, identified only as Megan C. for privacy, outlined a solution for clean drinking water using solar power and hydrophobic filters.

During the tour, students saw assemblies used to develop cancer treatment and specialty parts for the auto, natural gas and drinking water industries.