1. Dynetics To Add 350 Jobs in Huntsville
Huntsville-based Dynetics will build a 226,500-square-foot facility at the company's campus in Cummings Research Park, and it plans to add about 350 jobs over the next three years.
Dynetics President Tom Baumbach said the facility will be "fairly unique for this town," with about 110,000 square feet of space devoted to prototype development and low-rate production space and the rest office space.
The building will allow Dynetics to expand its capabilities in research and development and production for aerospace, defense and cyber security products. There will be space for the company's hardware integration, specialty item production and space systems work, including satellite integration.
Dynetics CEO Dr. Marc Bendickson said site work for the project is about to get started and construction is projected to take about 17 months. "We expect to move in March of 2012," he said.
"Seldom do you get the opportunity to make an announcement like this," said Gov. Bob Riley. The project represents an investment of $50 million, he said, and the new jobs will have an average salary of $100,000.
The production portion of the facility will house multiple laboratories, work bays and other spaces dedicated to testing/calibration, tools management and collaboration/meetings. The labs and bays will be built for work up to the collateral level, and two labs and two bays will meet sensitive compartmented information (SCI)-level requirements. The facility will contain an area rated to10k clean room standards for satellite integration work, as well as a large vacuum chamber, the company said.
2. Alabama Port Authority To Undergo $360 Million Upgrade
The Alabama State Port Authority board of directors has agreed to spend up to $360 million over the next five years improving port infrastructure. The capital program identifies key public investment needs at the Port of Mobile to attract new industry, create jobs and increase shipper competitiveness, Director Jimmy Lyons said in a statement.
“This is a long-range road map for us to identify projects that will enhance the port; it’s the same thing we did in early 2000 with a program of about the same size,” Lyons said.
Improvements being considered include the construction of new interchange and intermodal rail yards, a new warehouse and improved cargo yard to serve the steel business, cargo terminal improvements to accommodate growing regional exports and deepwater oil- and gas-field production service industries. The plan also calls for acquiring new deepwater land, should it become available, to accommodate future public seaport expansions. The improvements are based on the Port Authority’s market assessments for growth, with some projects generating 2,000 permanent new jobs within the port alone.
Docks officials say that the capital program that began in 2000 successfully leveraged $100 million in docks capital into $700 million worth of port improvements.
The resulting improvements, Lyons said, were “integral to attracting global players like APM Terminals, International Shipholding Corporation, Hyundai, ThyssenKrupp, SSAB, Berg Spiral Pipe, INEOS Phenol, and Aker Solutions.
3. Cullman Company Cash Acme To Create 100 New Jobs
Cash Acme is staying put. Though the company was on the verge of locating a new distribution plant outside the county, the valve manufacturer will instead build a new facility near their current plant in Cullman — creating an additional 100 jobs in the process.
The expansion comes on the heels of a spike in product demand for the Australia-based business, and additional manufacturing and distribution capabilities will be added to the Cullman location. The company already employs approximately 125 people in Cullman, and that number stands to increase to nearly 200 next year.
In the midst of unexpected growth, Cash Acme officials originally planned to look outside to neighboring communities to meet their need for additional space immediately. But, after working with the Cullman Economic Development Agency, a deal was reached to instead build a new facility near their current manufacturing and distribution plant.
“We were looking outside of Cullman because there were no existing buildings large enough in the county, and we did not believe we had sufficient time to build a new facility,” Cash Acme representative Heath Sharp said. “We considered a number of options, at one point even briefly looking at places as far flung as Atlanta and Savannah ... We were juggling a number of different and quite complex scenarios in order to identify the most efficient, and most rapid to implement, manufacturing and distribution strategy for the US market. To cut a long story short, we were able to completely reorganize our short term and long term plans in a manner that provided us with sufficient time to build a new facility in Cullman.”
4. North American Lighting To Add 100 Jobs in Shoals Area
Gov. Bob Riley formally announced a North American Lighting expansion that will add nearly 100 jobs to the plant in Shoals Research Airpark.
The governor has been receiving kind words at various visits to parts of the state as he nears the conclusion of his second and final term as governor in January.
Riley said the Shoals deserves the real credit for bringing North American Lighting to the industrial park in 2006. He said the area displays great unity when recruiting, and he lifts the Shoals up as an example to other parts of the state.
Riley also commended the industry and its employees for thriving during tough economic times.
North American Lighting is investing $10.2 million in machinery to make taillights for a number of automobile manufacturers.
Tim Miller, vice president and chief financial officer for North American, said the Muscle Shoals plant has about 300 employees. “The governor has been very supportive of North American Lighting from the beginning, and we’re here to say ‘thank you’ for his support,” Miller said. “The economy is strange right now, but through that, the employees have been resilient and we’re beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
5. GE To Invest $43 Million in Decatur Plant
General Electric Co. will invest $43 million in its refrigerator plant in Decatur and create a "green" manufacturing center of excellence there. This is on top of a $16 million investment made there earlier this year and will help retain more than 1,000 jobs at the site, GE said. The company makes top-freezer models at the Decatur plant.
The investment today is part of a $432 million plan to establish four refrigeration design and manufacturing centers of excellence and create 500 "green" jobs by 2014, according to the company. Others are in Louisville, Ky.; Bloomington, Ind.; and Selmer, Tenn.
"With lean manufacturing and advanced design, we believe that American workers can compete with any in the world," Charlene Begley, CEO of GE Home & Business Solutions said in a statement. "In addition, our employees and union leaders have agreed to innovative wage agreements that further increase the competitiveness of these plants."
6. Auto Parts Supplier Celebrates Grand Opening in Gadsden
Company and county leaders gathered in October to celebrate the grand opening of the Fehrer Automotive plant in Gadsden. Fehrer’s Gadsden location will be a Tier 1 supplier for the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., as well as a supplier for the Mercedes plant in Tuscaloosa and some BMW models.
“I can’t say how proud we are to have this in Gadsden, Etowah County and the other municipalities,” said Gadsden Mayor Sherman Guyton, who in February announced the German company’s intention to locate in Gadsden.
7. Cullman Casting To Create 120 New Jobs for Area
A metal casting company plans to reopen in Cullman within the next two months — creating more than 100 jobs by next year. Officials with Cullman Casting, a division of Indiana-based North Vernon Industries Corporation (NVIC), plan to return to operation by the end of November with at least 60 employees, and hire twice that many by summer 2011.
The company, which manufactures counterweights for forklifts and off-road vehicles, will begin test production in November and ramp up to full force in January 2011. Cullman Casting will return to their former, 100,000-square-foot facility off Golf Course Road, which has been vacant since they shut down operations in late 2008.
With a significant increase in production over the past year, coupled with a buyout by Toyota Industry Corp. in January, officials said the decision was made to re-open the Cullman facility to meet increased demand. “We’ve been blessed with a lot of return to our business sector, and we’ve had a very strong year, with levels far exceeding our capacity,” NVIC vice-president Jack Bodi said. “It looks like the future forecast for our market is that it will continue to grow through 2011, which justified the investment to reopen the facility in Cullman ... We’re just looking forward to coming back to the community, and to being a part of Cullman, again.”
8. Research Chief Says Huntsville Biotech Growing
The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a Huntsville nonprofit that specializes in genetics research, now has 15 corporate tenants in addition to its own staff, the organization's head of research said.
Chris Gunter, who also is a geneticist, said the hope is that some of the small biotech firms housed in the nonprofit's 200,000 square-foot building will have such success that they construct their own buildings in the 150-acre Cummings Research Park. Some of the institute's tenants already have had great success since its founding in 2004, she said. Among them are Diatherix Laboratories, which has created a way to test for multiple viruses simultaneously, and iCubate, which develops technology to perform the tests. Dr. Jian Han, who earned a doctorate in clinical molecular genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, founded iCubate.
Gunter said HudsonAlpha now employs about 150 people and another 215 work for its corporate tenants and associated companies. In addition to research, the organization provides education and outreach programs.
HudsonAlpha was created with a state commitment of $50 million in incentives and tax breaks in addition to $80 million in private donations. It's named after founder Jim Hudson and Huntsville's nonprofit Alpha Foundation. Before founding the institute, Hudson founded Research Genetics, which became a partner in the Human Genome Project before merging with Invitrogen Corp. in 2000.
9. Selma Company To Expand, Add 100 Jobs to Area Economy
SELMA — Plantation Patterns Furniture Co. is expanding in Selma, bringing a total of 100 more jobs over three years to the area Local economic development, government and Plantation Patterns officials made the announcement in early October.
The company, owned by Home Casual LLC of Fitchburg, Wis., will spend more than $1 million to broaden operations from the location at Craig Field Industrial Park to two locations in the city, said Wayne Vardaman, executive director of the Selma & Dallas County Economic Development Authority.
The company is purchasing a 54,000-square-foot building on McDuffie Avenue and is leasing a 94,000-square-foot building in the Bell Road Industrial Park as a distribution warehouse.
Scott Crumrine, president of Plantation Patterns, said the extra space would allow the company to manufacture the fiber it uses to stuff the cushions for the outdoor furniture it makes at the location at the industrial park.
The jobs will come in stages of 50 for the next three years.
10. Austal Gets Contracts for Fourth, Fifth High-Speed Transport Ships
MOBILE. -- Austal USA has gotten the official approval to build two more high-speed transport ships for the U.S. Department of Defense. The company had received about $100 million in June to buy the diesel engines, water jets and other equipment for the ships. The remaining portion of the contract is worth about $205 million, Austal officials said.
The ships will be the fourth and fifth Joint High Speed Vessels built by Austal. The company has a contract worth up to $1.6 billion to build as many as 10 of the ships, five each for the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.