Corporate Executives Find Region To Be a Fertile Place To Plant and Grow a Business
Published Feb 23, 2009
The availablity of incentives and a manufacturing workforce helped lure Tempur Production USA Inc. to Scott County, Va.
So, what prompted the head of a 40-year-old company with headquarters in California and a manufacturing plant in Michigan to move everything to Johnson City, Tenn.? The place and the people, says Alex Borla, founder and chief executive officer of Borla Performance Industries Inc.
Borla Performance Industries manufactures high-tech, stainless-steel exhaust systems, emissions-control systems and mufflers for premier street, off-road and racing vehicles. The company purchased and moved into the 325,000-square-foot EPIC Technologies plant, hired about 200 workers and commenced full operations in late 2008.
“We did get incentives, and they were good,” Borla says, “but that’s not [the main reason] we chose this area. It was the quality of life and the quality of the people.”
Borla cites numerous automotive manufacturers in the southeastern United States and the proximity to the Bristol Motor Speedway as additional attractions.
In nearby Scott County, Va., 300-employee Tempur Production USA – a wholly owned subsidiary of Tempur-Pedic International Inc. – has been cranking out space-age mattresses since it opened in 2001. Generous government incentives and the area’s strong manufacturing workforce figured highly in the Denmark-based company’s decision to establish its only U.S. factory in the town of Duffield.
“With the local workforce, everything we do here is a start-to-finish process,” says Ken Mitchell, vice president and plant manager of Tempur Production USA, referring to the way ideas can move through development and into production.
Also in Duffield, Tempur Production USA in spring 2007 opened a $3.5 million research and development division, where employees focus on primary materials, textile development, new designs and testing, Mitchell says. “We have a large (new) testing facility where we put our mattresses through the ringer.”
Other expanding companies in the Northeast Tennessee Valley region include Seaman Corp. in Bristol, Tenn., and DTR Tennessee Inc. in Claiborne County and Greene County, Tenn.
Seaman Corp., which makes high-performance fabrics for industrial and recreational applications, plans to invest $7 million over the next three years to develop state-of-the-art products and equipment.
DTR Tennessee, which supplies anti-vibration and hose products to automotive-industry customers such as Toyota and Nissan, recently invested $10 million to expand its Claiborne County plant by 88,000 square feet. With this latest expansion, the company’s employment is expected to reach 1,500, and its total investment in the state will exceed $200 million.
Story by Carol Cowan
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