Tennessee-based Microporous will invest $1.3 billion to build a battery separator manufacturing facility at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Nov. 13. The company expects to create 2,015 jobs.
The megasite’s first tenant, Microporous will develop Lot 1 at the park in two phases, with each phase being about 500,000 square feet. Lot 2 of the megasite will be under consideration for Microporous’ potential future expansion. Virginia successfully competed with North Carolina for the project.
During the ceremonial groundbreaking for the project, Youngkin nodded at the controversy created in 2023 after word broke that the governor had pulled the Southern Virginia Megasite out of the running for a $3.5 billion Ford Motor Co. electric vehicle battery factory over national security concerns that a Chinese company would be involved in its operation.
“I want to say it very clearly,” Youngkin said. “This is an American company using American technology that will hire American workers and supply American companies.”
For more than eight decades, Microporous has produced separators for lead-acid batteries, the oldest rechargeable battery technology, which is typically used in vehicles and to power grid systems. The company’s headquarters are in Sullivan County, Tennessee, near Bristol, Virginia. It also has a facility in Austria.
At the megasite, Microporous plans to expand into creating battery separators for lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicles, energy storage systems and other applications.
Microporous CEO John Reeves says the facility will be at the forefront of clean energy: “We are driven by commitment to innovation, sustainability and growth, and today marks an extraordinary step in that journey.”
The company’s Berry Hill manufacturing facility will be fully operational by 2026, according to Reeves.
The Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill is owned jointly by the City of Danville and Pittsylvania County through the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA). Leaders in the two counties have worked to make the site a reality since 2008.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Microporous was tapped to receive $100 million in federal funding for the project.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Danville-Pittsylvania County RIFA, Pittsylvania County, the City of Danville, the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission to secure the project.
Carolina Structural Systems, a company that manufactures custom wood trusses and other structural products, will invest $5.5 million and create an estimated 58 jobs in Greensville County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Monday.
Based in North Carolina, Carolina Structural Systems plans to construct a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Greensville County Industrial Park in Emporia, and it expects to purchase $395,000 in Virginia-grown lumber, according to the governor’s office.
“Carolina Structural Systems’ decision to establish its new manufacturing facility in Greensville County underscores Virginia’s strategic location and excellent transportation network,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Virginia’s pro-business climate and skilled workforce continue to attract out-of-state companies seeking to expand, and this investment is a testament to that.”
Virginia competed with North Carolina and South Carolina for the project, and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Customer Services worked with the county and Virginia’s Growth Alliance to secure the project. Youngkin approved a $270,000 Commonwealth Opportunity Fund grant and a $75,000 Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund grant to assist Greensville County. Carolina Structural Systems is eligible for state benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, and recruitment and training will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program at no cost to the company.
“Carolina Structural Systems is proud to partner with the Commonwealth of Virginia and Greensville County,” Carolina Structural Systems General Manager Dave Green said in a statement. “This location is strategically located between the growth in the area north of Raleigh, while giving us access to the Richmond market. Once we decided that our company’s growth was going to be in this region, the folks involved with this project made Virginia an easy choice.”
Wrap Technologies, an Arizona-based public safety and defense technology company, is locating its manufacturing and distribution base in Norton’s Project Intersection industrial park, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
The company will occupy a new, 20,000-square-foot building at Project Intersection, where U.S. Route 23 and Highway 58 meet. In August, a $10.4 million EarthLink call center became the industrial park’s first tenant. Project Intersection is a development project of the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, a multijurisdictional cooperative authority encompassing Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties and the City of Norton.
Wrap Technologies CEO Scot Cohen said in an interview Friday that the new plant will be ready by late 2025, but Wrap will be starting production in early 2025 in a temporary local facility. He added that the company, which will remain headquartered in Arizona, expects to invest $4.1 million in hiring new employees. Many of the new jobs will involve manufacturing, engineering and logistics, Cohen said, and the company will also be hiring people to train police officers and other first responders on how to use equipment produced by Wrap.
Scot Cohen. Photo courtesy Wrap Technologies
The company produces tools for law enforcement officers, including BolaWrap, a lasso-like restraint device made from Kevlar that police can use to de-escalate conflicts in the field, and Wrap is building training platforms using virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “On the VR side, there’s a lot of conversation with two local universities” — the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and Emory & Henry University — Cohen said. The company, which has 1,000 police departments worldwide as customers, also has plans for integrated body camera systems and drone technologies for safer and more efficient law enforcement, according to the governor’s news release.
Though Wrap primarily provides public safety technology to police departments across the country, it also is involved in producing defense technology, although there’s a fair amount of overlap between the two sectors, Cohen said.
The reason Wrap is setting up in Virginia is multifold. First, the company supplies products and training to more than 40 police departments in Virginia, including in Richmond and Fairfax County, Cohen said, and the state has skilled workers and strong political leadership. Although Wrap has received offers to move its manufacturing to other countries, “there wasn’t even anybody close” to Virginia’s bid, he added. “The state has everything we want.”
The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority (VCEDA) approved a $3.16 million loan for the Norton Industrial Development Authority to build the new facility at Project Intersection, and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission awarded regional economic development groups an $800,000 grant through its Southwest Economic Development program to assist with this project. Youngkin approved a $425,000 Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund grant as well, and the Virginia Jobs Investment Program will support employee training activities at no cost to Wrap.
“As Wrap Technologies brings its operations to Virginia and creates more than 120 jobs, we are reaffirming the commonwealth’s leadership in technology and innovation,” Youngkin said in a statement. “This expansion further accelerates our efforts to develop key technology hubs in the region.”
Super Radiator Coils, an engineering and manufacturing company based in Minnesota, will invest $22 million to expand in Chesterfield County, creating an estimated 160 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced Friday.
The company will upgrade machinery and add about 80,000 square feet to its existing approximately 160,000-square-foot facility at 451 Southlake Blvd.
The plant has about 400 employees, and the 160 new jobs will be office and shop positions, according to company vice president Matt Holland, who runs its Richmond division. Office positions include engineering, management and supervision, procurement and administrative roles, and shop manufacturing positions include equipment operators, welders, brazers and entry-level assembly roles.
Super Radiator Coils has previously expanded the Chesterfield facility three times, most recently in 2022. The company announced its most recent expansion, representing a $9 million investment, in March 2021.
“This expansion builds on a 44-year history of Super Radiator Coils in the commonwealth and strengthens Virginia’s position as a leader in advanced manufacturing,” Youngkin said in a statement.
Super Radiator Coils manufactures heat exchangers and specialty coils for power generation, commercial and industrial HVAC, data center cooling, military and other industrial uses.
“I’m hugely proud of the growth of our Chesterfield facility over the last 40-plus years,” Super Radiator Coils President and CEO Rob Holt said in a statement. “And this latest expansion will allow us to continue our mission of unleashing the power of thermodynamics to improve our world. … We take our role as a growing Central Virginia employer seriously and can’t wait to see the impact of this latest growth.”
The company has two other manufacturing facilities — one in Chaska, Minnesota, and one in Phoenix. Virginia competed with Minnesota and Arizona for the expansion project, according to a news release.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Chesterfield County to secure the project. Youngkin approved a $610,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist the county. VEDP will support Super Radiator Coils through the Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, a collaboration between VEDP and the Virginia Community College System that provides free customizable workforce recruitment and training services.
Tennessee-based Microporous will invest $1.3 billion to build its battery separator manufacturing facility at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday. The company expects the project to create 2,015 jobs.
The megasite’s first tenant, Microporous will develop Lot 1 at the park in two phases, with each phase being about 500,000 square feet. According to a news release from the governor’s office, the state anticipates Lot 2 of the megasite will be under consideration for Microporous’ potential future expansion. Virginia successfully competed with North Carolina for the project.
During the ceremonial groundbreaking for the project, Youngkin nodded at the controversy created in 2023 after word broke that the governor had pulled the Southern Virginia Megasite out of the running for a $3.5 billion Ford Motor Co. electric vehicle battery factory over national security concerns that a Chinese company would be involved in its operation.
“I want to say it very clearly,” Youngkin said Wednesday. “This is an American company using American technology that will hire American workers and supply American companies.”
For more than eight decades, Microporous has produced separators for lead-acid batteries, the oldest rechargeable battery technology, which is typically used in vehicles and to power grid systems. The company’s headquarters are in Sullivan County, Tennessee, near Bristol, Virginia. It also has a facility in Austria.
At the megasite, Microporous plans to expand into creating battery separators for lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicles, energy storage systems and other applications.
Microporous CEO John Reeves said Wednesday that the facility will be at the forefront of clean energy. “We are driven by commitment to innovation, sustainability and growth, and today marks an extraordinary step in that journey,” he said.
The company’s Berry Hill manufacturing facility will be fully operational by 2026, according to Reeves.
The Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill is owned jointly by the City of Danville and Pittsylvania County through the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA). Leaders in the two counties have worked to make the site a reality since 2008.
Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Chair Darrell Dalton called Microporous’ selection of the megasite “a testament to how two localities work together [to] pull themselves out of economic hardship, to where they’re generating optimism for the future.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announces Microporous’ $1.3 billion facility in Pittsylvania County. Photo by Beth JoJack
Vic Ingram, chair of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Authority and a member of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, considers Microporous selecting the megasite for its facility as the start of something great.
“We were once known as the world’s largest tobacco market and home of Dan River Mills, or Dan River Fabrics,” he said. “Many of us vividly remember those tobacco fields, but moving forward, we will be known nationwide, if not worldwide, for advanced manufacturing technology,” he said.
State Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville, a commissioner on the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission’s board, noted Wednesday that the commission has invested over $60 million in the project. “And we’re looking forward to getting returned with great paying jobs and great investments here,” he said.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Microporous was among seven recipients of federal funding totaling $275 million designed to strengthen the country’s clean energy supply chains. The majority of the selected projects were planned to be in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities. Microporous was tapped to receive the largest chunk of those federal dollars: $100 million.
In a news release distributed Wednesday, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, D-VA, noted that Microporous’ Virginia facility will also be eligible for “additional federal incentives because it falls within an area designated that has been designated an ‘energy community’ by the Inflation Reduction Act.”
For several years, progress at the megasite at Berry Hill had stalled because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would not issue a permit to grade the land unless a tenant had been secured. Warner and Kaine worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and advocated for the work to be permitted.
“This is a testament to years of hard work and collaboration, including working in a bipartisan way to address permitting challenges at economic development sites in Southside,” Kaine stated. “With major federal investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and smart moves to cut red tape, it’s clear our work is paying off.”
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Danville-Pittsylvania County RIFA, Pittsylvania County, the City of Danville, the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission to secure the Microporous project.
Microporous will be eligible to receive an MEI Commission-approved special appropriation of up to $60.6 million for the company’s investment of more than $1.3 billion and the creation of more than 2,000 jobs, subject to the approval of the Virginia General Assembly, according to a news release from the governor’s office. Additionally, the company is eligible to apply for state grants from the Port of Virginia.
The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, a program run by VEDP with higher education partners, will provide recruitment and training services to the company.
Carpenter and Casper have had a significant supply agreement for more than a year, and the industry rumor mill has been busy saying the foam producer would likely acquire the mattress brand.
Carpenter said it will “assist Casper on a comprehensive growth and profitability strategy, as well as the appropriate future channels to market.”
CMC Electronics, a Montreal-based avionics manufacturer, will invest $5 million to establish an office and research and development facility in Reston, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
Initially, the project will create 89 jobs, with more positions expected as operations increase, according to the governor’s office.
“This creation of new high-tech jobs demonstrates the strength of our commonwealth’s talent pipeline and our commitment to fostering cutting-edge industries,” Youngkin said in a statement.
CMC Electronics also has facilities in Canada and Illinois.
The company that would become CMC Electronics launched in 1903 as a wireless telegraph business. In the 1960s, the business switched its focus to aircraft navigation, monitoring and display systems, tactical radio communications, radar systems and multi-processor telex switching systems. Today, CMC Electronics designs and manufactures cockpit systems integration, avionics, display solutions and high-performance microelectronics for the military and commercial aviation markets.
“By expanding our presence, we are reinforcing our commitment to growth and continuing to provide cutting-edge avionics solutions that meet the evolving needs of the aerospace and defense industries,” Pierre Rossignol, president of CMC Electronics, stated.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority to secure the project for Virginia.
Youngkin approved a $300,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund, a cash grant awarded to local governments on behalf of a company to offset or reimburse certain project-related costs, to assist Fairfax County with the project. Additionally, CMC Electronics is eligible for the Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit, which provides an $1,000 income tax credit for each full-time job created over a threshold number of jobs. VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program will also provide funding and services for recruitment and training.
Home furniture manufacturer and retailer Bassett Furniture has named Tony Chivari as its new chief marketing officer.
Chivari has held similar positions with 1-800-Flowers.com, Gem Shopping Network and Things Remembered.
“We are very excited to welcome Tony to the Bassett team as we continue our journey to become a national omnichannel provider of home furnishings,” Rob Spilman, Bassett chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Tony has worked with our digital marketing and e-commerce organization for most of 2024 as a consultant, and we mutually concluded that the opportunity to grow Bassett’s business would be better served by Tony becoming a full-time member of our team.”
Before Bassett, Chivari was CEO for Atlanta-based Whimsical Gifts. He’s also worked as an independent consultant, marketing leader for 1-800-Flowers.com and president of Gem Shopping Network.
“In addition to the good work already underway on the digital front, Tony will lead a comprehensive review of our brand strategy across all media where we market our broad range of transactional and custom-designed products,” Spilman continued. “We are excited by the progress that we have made this year and believe that Tony’s leadership will place the Bassett brand on a path to future growth.”
About 45,000 union dockworkers walked off the job at every major port along the East and Gulf coasts until they ended the strike after reaching a tentative deal three days later. (Oct. 1)
However, state watchdog JLARC said Radford University, Virginia State University and the University of Mary Washington were not in imminent danger of closing. (Oct. 8)
The subsidiary of Norway’s Kongsberg Group plans to establish its first U.S. defense assembly plant in James City County, creating an estimated 180 jobs. (Sept. 17)
Electro-Mechanical — an electrical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Bristol — will invest $16.55 million to expand in Washington County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Tuesday.
“Electro-Mechanical’s significant expansion in Washington County demonstrates the strength of Southwest Virginia’s manufacturing sector and business climate,” Youngkin stated in a news release.
The company plans to add a 200,000-square-foot facility in Washington County, creating over 109 jobs, according to the governor’s office. Electro-Mechanical hopes to complete the expansion in 2025, according to spokespeople for the company.
Electro-Mechanical also has three manufacturing facilities in Bristol, one in Canada and another in Mexico, they noted. About 520 of the company’s 700 employees work in Bristol.
“We are excited to once again be expanding our Bristol, Virginia, operations,” Howard Broadfoot, president and CEO of Electro-Mechanical, said in a statement. “We have experienced tremendous growth in our business over the past several years and this additional manufacturing capacity will allow us to better serve our customers for years to come.”
Electro-Mechanical’s roots date to 1958 when Frank Leonard opened an electrical apparatus repair shop on Bristol’s Williams Street, according to a company timeline.
Initially, the business primarily served the textile industry, but when a major client went out of business in the late 1960s, Electric Motor Repair and Sales refocused its business on serving the region’s mining industry. In 1971, the company changed its name to Electro-Mechanical and launched Line Power, a division providing electrical distribution and control apparatus.
Electro-Mechanical purchased Federal Pacific Transformer in 1986 and moved the company from Chicago to Bristol. That division offers dry-type transformers and medium-voltage switchgear.
Graycliff Partners, a New York investment firm, purchased Electro-Mechanical in 2021. The next year, Electro-Mechanical acquired Mirus International, a Canadian manufacturer of specialized power quality improvement products.
Graycliff Partners sold Electro-Mechanical to funds managed by California’s Oaktree Capital Management in March.
Virginia competed with Tennessee for the Electro-Mechanical expansion. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Washington County to secure the project for Virginia.
Youngkin approved a $300,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund, a state incentive to spur economic development, to assist Washington County with the project. Additionally, Electro-Mechanical is eligible for state benefits through the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, a state and local government partnership designed to promote job creation and investment. The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, created by VEDP in collaboration with higher education participants, will provide recruitment and training services.
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