Power Group to locate new plant in Wayne
By Drew Davis-STAFF WRITER
Published: Friday, July 27, 2012 2:56 PM CDT
Clyde Bergemann Power Group Americas has announced plans to open a new plant in Wayne County this fall.
The plant, to be located in the front part of the former American Welding and Tank property on Tank Road, is expected to employ between 70 and 90 people at full capacity.
The Wayne County Industrial Development Authority, which owns the property, signed a letter of intent Thursday morning. The letter of intent sets out how Clyde Bergemann will sublease the front part of the property (as seen from Tank Road) from Williams Brothers Trucking.
Clyde Bergemann Power Group Americas-a Delaware corporation that is part of the global company Clyde Bergemann Power Group—engineers and supplies systems and solutions for the power-generation industry in the Americas to improve the efficiency of coal- and biomass-fired boilers and reduce their emissions.
The new plant, only Clyde Bergemann’s second in Georgia, will help the company satisfy a growing demand from the utility industry for solutions to air-pollution control and materials handling. The aim is to bring existing coal plants into compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which require reduced emissions of toxic air pollutants such as mercury, particulate matter and acid gases.
The facility will cover 125,000 square feet and primarily produce components for pulse-jet fabric filters, dry-sorbent injection systems and bottom ash conveyors.
“The decision to establish this new facility follows on the heels of a recent $180 million order we received from a public utility to supply fabric filters and sorbent injection systems for their coal-fired boiler fleet with a combined generation capacity of 5,000 megawatts,” company president and CEO Hans Schwade said. “We are very pleased that Wayne County and the state of Georgia worked hard to make it possible for us to provide good jobs in Georgia and look forward to continue to working closely with the county and the local community.”
Industrial Development Authority Chair Mickey Whittington said at the signing, “It’s great when a plan comes together. And I think this is a good plan. And we’re looking forward to putting more people to work.”
Anyone seeking employment at the plant should contact the local Department of Labor office, which will conduct pre-employment screening.
The majority of the positions will be MIG welders, though welder helpers/fitters and machine operators will also be needed.
Altamaha Technical College and QuickStart will be coordinating the testing and training of potential employees.
“This has been a collaborative effort between our local industrial development authority, ATC, Georgia’s QuickStart Training Program, Department of Labor and the State Department of Economic Development,” explained John Riddle, president and CEO of the Development Authority and the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce. “Once we got Clyde Bergeman Power Group back for a second visit, we introduced them to the breadth of resources available in Wayne County and Georgia that helped them choose Wayne County.
“We are also grateful to William Brothers Trucking for working as a partner on this effort to attract CBPG and make the appropriate improvements to the facility to accommodate them.”
The subleased property will consist mainly of the two newest buildings on the Tank Plant property. Clyde Bergemann will sublease the property from Williams Brothers for $20,000 a month for the first five years and $22,000 a month afterward.
According to Riddle, 10 percent of that monthly rent will go to the Development Authority. He noted, though, that even without the sublease payments, Wililams Brothers’ rent on the property as a whole will exceed what the Authority has to pay on the loan it used to buy the property.
Riddle noted that the jobs at the Clyde Bergemann plant will apply toward the number of jobs that would qualify Williams Brothers to have payments in lieu of taxes waived. (Though the Authority still owns the property, the lease requires Williams Brothers to make payments in lieu of taxes unless they are waived.)
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