Kasich attends Kent plant's grand opening

Written by Emily Inverso Tuesday, 22 November 2011 14:34

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Kent has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and it all kicked off Tuesday when a visit from Gov. John Kasich celebrated the grand opening of MAC LTT Plant on Fairchild Avenue.

This trailer manufacturer is slated to hire about 250 employees in the next 12 to 16 months, with about 60 of them already working.

“People thought manufacturing was dead,” Kasich said. “Well, they’re dead wrong. Manufacturing is not dead.”

MAC LTT, when looking to expand, had to decide between the Kent location and a similar building in Texas. Between the $3.2 million in state incentives and the easy access to his Salem and Alliance plants, MAC CEO and owner Mike Conny said Kent was just more attractive.

“I’m also from the area,” Conny said. “We’re excited to bring 250 jobs to the area, and we plan to be here for a long time.”

The company’s Kent payroll is projected to be more than $9.5 million after the full staff is hired, said Kent Economic Development Director Dan Smith.

“And out of those 230-plus employees, only about 10 are transfers (from other plants),” Smith said. “The rest are new employees to the City of Kent and Ohio.”

Those positions promise to pay its workers a minimum of $15 per hour, said Nate Green, senior project manager for Jobs Ohio.

That wage was a welcome addition to Abuu Juma’s life, a 30-year-old area resident who has been welding at the new Kent plant for about two months.

“It felt great when I found out I had the job,” Juma said. “I could definitely use the job. I have a family, and I have kids I need to support.”

Ohio’s economic development team has been involved in 191 other job-creating projects in the last nine months, according to the Governor’s report to the Board of Directors.

“We’ve created 14,526 new jobs, and we have saved 28,892 jobs for a total of 43,418 jobs saved or created in Ohio in the period of the last eight or nine months,” Kasich said. “When you add up all the payroll saved or created, that’s $2.6 billion.”

And that makes it a great day to be in Kent, Ohio, at least that was what Kent Mayor Jerry Fiala said as he gathered with a group of other city and MAC officials to cut the ribbon for MAC LTT’s grand opening.

After a few minutes of them all struggling with the oversized scissors, one of their voices boomed out:

“Man, I sure hope our trailers work better than the scissors.”