Defense/public safety tech manufacturer moving to SWVA

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.

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.”