West Virginia is ripe for growth, and companies around the world are taking notice of the benefits of doing business here. According to the West Virginia Development Office, the Mountain State is ranked first in the country for economic growth for 2019, has the fourth lowest workers’ compensation rate and has a 16 percent lower cost of living than the national average. Ranked the 11th best state for the cost of doing business, it is no wonder that businesses representing 27 countries now have a presence in West Virginia.
Since 2017, West Virginia has seen $5 billion in business investments, from new buildings to facility expansions, which translates to the creation of new jobs and the generation of additional tax revenue for the state and its communities.
From Northrop Grumman’s new 50,000-square-foot facility in Mineral County and Toyota’s $115 million expansion in Buffalo to the arrival of Carbon Activated’s 55 jobs in Fayette County and Solvay’s $70 million investment in Willow Island, growth is taking place all over the Mountain State, and West Virginia’s business community has much to celebrate.
AHF Products
By Katlin Swisher
AHF Products, the largest pre-finished hardwood flooring plant in North America, is undergoing a $9.2 million expansion project that is set to add 85,000 square feet to the plant’s existing 750,000-square-foot manufacturing space. AHF is located in Beverly, WV, and produces four species of pre-finished hardwood flooring—red oak, white oak, maple and hickory. With completion expected by October 31, 2019, the project will add a distribution center and create additional warehouse and manufacturing space.
“The distribution center will allow for flooring not only produced in Beverly but other plants to be shipped from this location,” says Blaine Emery, manager of the Beverly plant. “The goal of the expansion is to become more efficient in distributing our product to our customers. This allows us to be more responsive to our customers’ needs in an ever-changing marketplace.”
As a result of the expansion, 60 jobs will be saved and 50 new jobs will be created over the next five years.
“This expansion is a partnership between AHF Products and the Randolph County Development Authority that will anchor this production in Randolph County for another 20 years with opportunity to grow,” says Emery. “This means stability for loggers, sawmills, users of our wood waste and many others. We also need more trucks to not only bring lumber into the plant but also to ship our finished flooring out to our customers. Our truck traffic in and out of the plant will increase significantly when the project is completed.”
This project also creates the potential for a significant number of indirect jobs to be added to Randolph County’s workforce, as AHF already purchases approximately 90 million board feet of lumber per year from more than 100 sawmills in the region. That quantity will likely increase once the expansion is complete.
“The distribution center allows distribution to be located closer to the plant’s customer base, which is primarily in the eastern U.S., instead of shipping west to our existing distribution center in Dixon, TN,” says Emery. “This provides faster customer service as well as more efficient shipping operations.”
The products are not only made in West Virginia but so is the expansion itself. The construction is being done by Paramount Builders from St. Albans, WV, and the architectural and engineering work is being led by Pickering Associates of Parkersburg.
Carbon Activated Corporation
By Cathy Bonnstetter
Carbon Activated Corporation, one of the largest activated carbon manufacturers and distributors in the world, has opened its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Mount Hope, WV. Utilizing the former Georgia Pacific plant as a warehouse and service center for customers, this location situates Carbon Activated in the heart of Appalachia, and that is a benefit for both the corporation and the state’s coal companies.
“West Virginia is a great location because a large percentage of our product is made from bituminous coal,” says Tom Nash, business development manager for Carbon Activated.
The availability of raw material is just one of many assets West Virginia brings to the table.
“I am very excited about the area’s natural beauty and the recreational options,” says Nash. “Those aspects can attract employees who are experts in our industry.”
According to Carbon Activated’s website, activated carbon—also called activated charcoal or activated coal—is used to purify, dechlorinate, deodorize and decolorize water and air. Customers include municipal drinking water and wastewater facilities as well as households.
The fully operational plant will employ 55 people. Carbon Activated is looking for people who represent several skill sets as the operation ramps up.
“This will be a step-by-step process,” says Nash. “We are interested in finding people who have experience in our field, but because it is a new thing in West Virginia, that has been a challenge. We will need some strong, mechanically inclined people to do some of the service work, a good crop of tanker drivers who can load and unload powder and granular material, mechanically inclined people to operate the machines once we build the plant and a small sales team.”
Carbon Activated opened its doors in 1993 as an importer of activated carbon and has a manufacturing trading branch in China and an additional plant in Sri Lanka.
Hino Motors Manufacturing U.S.A., Inc.
By Maggie Hatfield
The West Virginia plant of Hino Motors Manufacturing U.S.A., Inc. recently moved its production and storage facilities 20 miles from Williamstown to Mineral Wells. According to Steve Stalnaker, senior vice president and plant manager, the move was planned in two main stages.
“In November 2018, we moved our logistics center operation from Columbus, Ohio, to Mineral Wells,” he says. “That same month, we also moved our cab trim operations line to our new site, which required us to disassemble our existing line. Finally, we took a two-week break in production to move other required equipment, tools and fixtures.”
The plant was up and running again by May of this year. The reasoning behind the move was the amount of growth the company has experienced.
“Williamstown was an outstanding place to operate a business, and we had a great relationship with the city and community,” says Stalnaker. “Unfortunately, we just ran out of the space required for a growing business.”
Although the building did require significant reconstruction to meet the company’s manufacturing needs, it is four times the size of the plant in Williamstown, which meets Hino’s immediate needs with room for growth.
Typically, the Japanese manufacturer produces Class 6 and 7 medium duty trucks and specialized trucks. Now, with more room for production, Hino Motors in West Virginia is able to establish a chassis line for its new XL truck series. “We build our standard model and the XL on the same main assembly line, but having two chassis sub assembly areas allows us greater flexibility in our model mix,” says Stalnaker.
Over the past year, Hino has also been able to create 130 additional positions in all departments, including logistics, assembly and quality.
“This move was an essential component of Hino’s strategy for growth in the U.S. market,” says Stalnaker. “Our new assembly line was designed to increase production capacity by 30 percent. In addition, the new plant has incorporated the XL series truck into the layout to provide a more diverse truck lineup for additional applications.”
Northrop Grumman
By Kristen Uppercue
Northrop Grumman, a global aerospace and defense technology company serving the U.S. military, opened a new 50,000-square-foot facility this year at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in Rocket Center, WV, to help meet the military’s growing demand for rocket motors.
The company has invested more than $100 million in the new facility over the past five years alongside the U.S. Navy, which owns the lab. The new facility is designed to optimize manufacturing flow, reducing product travel time and distance between operations. Due to facility growth, the state of West Virginia has supported the company by helping to retain more than 1,100 jobs, and more than 500 additional jobs are expected to be created at the location in fields ranging from production operators to engineers over the next five years. Northrop Grumman will also be spreading out the expansion of the facility in phases over the next few years to keep pace with production needs.
Northrop Grumman provides products that discover threat detection and secure communications in many different platforms, including cyber defense, space missions and strike systems for the country’s military and logistics, modernization and autonomous systems, to organizations around the world. It is also the leading provider of the C4ISR analysis systems, which provide integrated solutions that support the U.S. and its allied forces.
“Our Rocket Center team has engineered and manufactured technologies to support our military for more than 70 years,” says Vice President and General Manager of Defense Systems Mike Kahn. “We are extremely pleased that the state of West Virginia will be supporting investments in both infrastructure and in our workforce to ensure we can continue to deliver the capacity and cutting-edge technology that our military services need to execute their missions for years to come.”
Rockwool North America
By Jean Hardiman
Rockwool is working on a $150 million investment in Jefferson County that will create its second stone wool insulation manufacturing plant in the U.S. The project builds on the foundations established by its facility in Marshall County, MS, which opened in 2014, and more than 30 years of history in North America and 80 years globally. The new facility, which has a targeted completion date of fall 2020, will help Rockwool meet growing customer demand for its stone wool insulation products, especially in the economically vibrant Mid-Atlantic region.
Combined with taxes paid and payroll for staff members, Rockwool projects that in total $218 million will be injected into the local economy over the first 10 years of operation. It’s expected to employ 150 people directly with all but a small handful being hired locally. Opportunities with Rockwool in Ranson will be in the areas of operations, engineering, maintenance and trades for building improvements, supervision of safety, quality, quantity, cost, efficiency, environment and customer service.
“We anticipate an approximate 80/20 split between technician roles supporting the production line and leadership/management positions,” says Michael Zarin, vice president of group communications. “We offer competitive compensation packages with baseline salaries for technical positions ranging between $35,000-$55,000 per year and with leadership/management positions averaging around $85,000 per year. Based on experience elsewhere, we expect a similar number of indirect jobs will be created as we build supplier relationships and locally source services and products. During the factory construction phase, there will be as many as 250 people working on-site.”
Solvay
By Katlin Swisher
Undergoing a $70 million expansion at its Willow Island, WV, manufacturing plant, Solvay is expected to create 30-40 new union jobs when its expansion is complete in 2021.
The Willow Island location is a manufacturing site for Solvay’s Technology Solutions global business unit, which supplies specialty chemicals to customers worldwide. Its primary focus is the production of UV light stabilizers, which are used to reduce the harmful effects of the sun’s radiation on plastics.
The ongoing expansion will create a second, fully independent high molecular weight and hindered amine light stabilizer manufacturing unit spanning 27,000 square feet that complements the existing product line
“This state-of-the-art facility was designed with the latest improvements in technology to ensure operator safety, reduce impact on the environment and improve the quality and consistency of the final product,” says David Fenton, industrial director of polymer additives in Solvay’s Technology Solutions global business unit. “The new design is well laid out, and the equipment is easy to access, creating a safer space for teams to conduct maintenance activities. Solids-handling capabilities have also been upgraded to create an even safer and more productive working environment for employees, which ultimately leads to greater efficiency and improved customer service.”
The expansion doubles Solvay’s current capacity, enabling the company to provide greater security of supply and a faster response to customers as demand for Solvay’s light stabilizers and the polyolefin plastics they support grows. Completion of phase one is expected this fall with the full unit operational in 2021.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia, Inc.
By Maggie Hatfield
In 2017, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia, Inc. (TMMWV) announced a $115 million investment that would expand the plant’s current facility and operations in Buffalo, WV, to include the production of 120,000 transaxles per year. However, the company has now doubled the volume to 240,000 units beginning in 2021, which is an additional investment of $111 million.
As part of the expansion project, new equipment has been installed on-site at the transmission plant. The expansion will include 72,000 square feet of space, which will increase the facility’s footprint to 2 million square feet. The Toyota plant will also be adding 123 new jobs to its production line.
While TMMWV team members are mainly responsible for building engines and transmissions, they have been training for a year in preparation for this unique project. The units built at the plant will be shipped to Toyota’s Indiana plant for assembly in the Highlander and Sienna models.
“Toyota is the world leader in hybrid technology, and it is the pathway to the next generation of vehicles,” says TMMWV President Leah Curry. “This latest project demonstrates the confidence of our parent company, Toyota Motor Corporation, in Toyota West Virginia. We were the first Toyota facility in North America to produce transmissions, and in 2017 we were named the first plant outside of Japan to begin producing hybrid transmissions. Now, before we’ve even begun production, we have been given the opportunity to double the volume of this project. We are proud of our contribution to this new generation of vehicles.”
The plant will roll the first official hybrid transaxle off the production line in April 2020.
