Work Ethic Fuels Fort Smith Allure
by October 25, 2004 12:00 am 70 views
John Smith, general manager of MacSteel, said strong demand in the steel industry isn’t the only reason his parent company, Quanex Corp. of Houston, is investing $20 million in its 500,000-SF Fort Smith plant.
Smith said Quanex has invested $180 million in Fort Smith during the last 10 years and it keeps coming back because the city’s strong work ethic.
“We’ve been successful in making a good return on our investments because the people of Fort Smith are good workers,” Fisher said. “They know what we have here and they want to protect it. For the last 11 years, MacSteel has been rated No. 1 in overall customer satisfaction in a steel bar industry survey conducted by Jacobson & Associates.
“Our people know that and they want to stay No. 1. It’s like winning the Super Bowl 11 times in a row.”
The initiative will increase the plant’s annual capacity by 40,000 tons to about 500,000 tons, bringing the facility’s total shipping capacity to about 1.3 million tons.
MacSteel, which makes steel bars for the automotive industry, isn’t the only firm to make a serious capital investment in Fort Smith of late:
• ChaseCom LP of Houston is creating 140 new jobs with the opening of a new call center.
• Graphic Packaging is building a 300,000-SF manufacturing plant worth $42 million. It saved 165 jobs and added 135 more.
• HVAC titan Trane Inc. plans to invest $30 million in upgrading its air conditioning and heating plant that employs 683 people. The deal calls for new equipment and a 50,000-SF expansion.
• Gerber Products Co., has started a $90 million capital expansion at its baby food plant.
And there are others.
“All of the things we’ve done in the last several years to add to our quality of life and for work force training here are paying off,” said Ray Gosack, Fort Smith’s deputy city administrator. “We’ve gotten ourselves poised to be a sustainable manufacturing environment, and industries are happy to make long-term investments here.”
Unemployment in the Arkansas River Valley was at 4.5 percent in July, down from 5.2 percent at the same time in 2003, Gosack said.