Vastly appoints Stephanie Nelson chief financial officer

Vastly, the company that plans to build a massive advanced manufacturing plant in the Chesterfield County, has hired a chief financial officer.

The company, formerly known as Tranlin Inc., has named Stephanie Nelson to the position. Nelson will be responsible for finance, accounting, human resources, IT, and administration.

According to Vastly, Nelson joined the company in November and has been instrumental in building the recruiting, human resources management and financial controls functions. Her experience includes process re-engineering and change management advisory services for Ernst & Young, cost and profitability analysis for Sprint Nextel/Nextel and corporate finance and management consulting services for KPMG and PwC.

“I am honored to join the Vastly team as it gears up for this historic project bringing tree-free paper products and earth-restorative biostimulants, clean manufacturing, and thousands of jobs to the U.S. I look forward to applying my experience across industries and functions to bring this project to fruition by working with our team and our partners from around the state of Virginia and the world,” Nelson said in a statement.

Vastly, the U. S. subsidiary of China-based Shandong Tranlin Paper Co., originally announced the Chesterfield project in June 2014, characterizing it as the largest investment ever by a Chinese company in Virginia’s history and one that would bring as many as 2,000 jobs by 2020.

In September, after months of delays, the company announced that it had awarded a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group, based in Pasenda, Calif., to lead permit acquisition and provide design services for a new $2 billion paper manufacturing plant on an 850-acre site. Vastly broke ground in October 2015 on a site on Willis Road, but construction is yet to start.

Asked about the project’s progress, a Vastly official said the company should be able to meet the 2020 timeframe. “It depends on the permits and how long thy take to get … ,” John M. Stacey, senior vice president, marketing and sales, told Virginia Business.  “We may be breaking ground as early as this year. There may be some things where we don’t need to get the environmental permits. We will need to get the building permits. We’re moving forward.“

Garrett Hart,  director of Chesterfield's Economic Development Authority, confirmed that Vastly is at work on the permits. “We continue to work with Vastly’s construction team and with Jacobs Engineering on the preparation of their permits. We anticipate that they will be in the position to start applying for local site plan approvals in late spring,” he said.