Factory to create 830 LR-area jobs

2nd wind-blade maker, supplier to set up in old Levi Strauss center

By Toby Manthey

LITTLE ROCK — A Dutch wind-blade manufacturer said Wednesday that it and one of its suppliers plan to create about 830 jobs in the Little Rock area over the next four years.

Polymarin Composites will be the second wind-blade manufacturer to locate in the Little Rock area in a little over a year. Last fall, Danish manufacturer LM Glasfiber broke ground on a $150 million plant at the Little Rock Port.

"What's great about this is it really is the beginnings of a kind of green-energy cluster, which I think almost everybody would agree is going to be a growth industry going into the future," said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. "Right now, any job isa good job."

Employment growth has gone to "basically zero" in Arkansas in the recent economic downturn, Deck said.

About 630 of the 830 employees will work for Polymarin, the company said in a release.

Polymarin hopes to hire 100 employees by the end of this year, with 30 of those being hired and trained "very soon," said Frank A. Epps, who is overseeing development of the Little Rock plant for parent company Emergya Wind Technologies. Epps added that he is currently interviewing candidates for plant manager.

Polymarin [pronounced Polly-Marine] will move into the former Levi Strauss distribution center on Interstate 530 near Wrightsville and will spend $16 million to adapt the building for blade production. That distribution center closed in 2006.

Wind Water Technology, a supplier to Emergya, will share the facility and will start addingemployees in January, Epps said. Wind Water Technology will invest $4 million in equipment and plans to employ 200 in the next four years.

The average wage for both firms will be $15 an hour.

Polymarin must fill roles including senior management positions, as well as production workers and white-collar workers such as accounting and payroll personnel.

Most of the production at the Little Rock facility will supply Emergya's own turbines, Epps said, but the blades also will be sold to other companies.

The center will be the headquarters for Polymarin Composites USA Ltd, he said, and will be responsible for the company's blade production for North and South America.

Polymarin spent nine months choosing a site from among locations in more than 25 states, said Gerry van der Sluys, Emergya's chief executive officer.

"It is for us a very important project," van der Sluys said, adding that new plants in Little Rock and Xinghe in Inner Mongolia China are "all to cater forthe substantial growth that the wind-energy market shows."

Polymarin also makes blades in the Netherlands.

Epps said Arkansas wasn't chosen because of one particular customer but an important factor was the cost of getting products to customers throughout its entire American market area.

Arkansas' proximity to the Mississippi River was key, he said, because the company can barge smaller blades much more cost effectively than it could transport them overland.

Polymarin's operations differ from LM Glasfiber's, he said, because it will make smaller blades and because LM Glasfiber sells mostly to other companies.

State and local officials on Tuesday speaking at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, where announcement of the jobs was made, credited retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a member of the Emergya's "supervisory board," for keeping the Arkansas site on the minds of Polymarin officials.

Gov. Mike Beebe and Clark said Wednesday that wind energy and alternative energy forms are important to U.S. national security because they reduce dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Clark praised congressional approval of the nation's $850 billion economic "bailout" plan last week. Additions to the bill included renewal of the U.S. "production tax credit" until the end of 2009 for wind power, a credit that gives incentives for production of energy such as wind and solar power.

"I heard the press refer to those as sweeteners," Arkansas' U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder said of additions to what was originally a $700 billion bailout, adding that he believes some of the money funded "absolute priorities" for the country.

Epps said the company would have moved forward with the project whether the credits were renewed or not, but "historically every time the [production tax credit] has been dropped, we have seen a dramatic drop in the deployment of renewable energy here in the United States."

Developers and investors who install Polymarin's products and produce energy could potentially receive the credit, he said.

Joe Holmes, spokesman for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said the exact amount of state incentives that Polymarin will receive depends on several factors such as its payroll.

It will receive sales tax rebates for the purchase of manufacturing equipment. It also will receive benefits from the Advantage Arkansas program, which offers a state income tax credit for job creation based on payroll, as well as Create Rebate incentives, or annual cash payments based on payroll.

Front Section, Pages 1, 8 on 10/09/2008