Joseph Rich smiled into the sun, his 2-year-old daughter, Sierra, on his hip.

“She learned how to clap for the first time today,” Rich, 42, said. The pair drove out to the Flagship Business Park Tuesday to see Nestlé executives and government officials turn the first shovelfuls of dirt at the future site of a $359-million factory and distribution center.

Laid off from his job as an engineer at Delphi Corp., Rich said he’s planning to apply for a job when the facility opens in 2008.

“We’re happy it’s here. We just wanted to be a part of it,” he said.

The same could be said for many Anderson residents, more than 200 of whom turned out for the groundbreaking Tuesday morning.

“We want Anderson to get to know Nestlé,” Rob Case, president of the Nestlé Beverage Division, said. “We want to continue to grow the company and the community.”

With a gold-plated Nestlé-bunny shovel in hand, he and about nine other executives and officials drove shovels into the newly plowed earth.

“We’d better keep digging,” Corporation for Economic Development Executive Director Mary Starkey said with a laugh. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

When it opens, the plant will cover 880,000 square feet.

Starkey and the rest of the economic development team in Anderson have already come a long way. CED was first contacted by Nestlé’s site selection firm two years ago.

At that time, the company was looking at hundreds of sites in the Midwest. But several factors, executives said, helped Anderson stick out.

The site itself, which is located across from Carter Logistics at the Flagship Business Park, was one.

“It was very level, with an interstate nearby and access to railroad,” Cases said.

And they liked the town as well, said Steve Presley, vice president and general manager of Nestle Ready-To-Drink Beverages.

“We wanted someplace our employees could live and raise their families,” he said. “Anderson meets all the criteria.”