When it rains, it pours – and when that metaphor is being applied to business expansion in an area, well, pouring rain turns out to be a very good thing. Guilford County has been on a hot streak lately when it comes to job growth, and that continued this week when the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce announced that RPM Wood Finishes Group will be making a $25-million investment in a research and development facility for Greensboro.
The press release from the chamber states: “Greensboro and Guilford County have been selected as the location of the new, state-of-the-art RPM Wood Finishes Group Research, Development & Innovation Center of Excellence. The facility will occupy nearly 60,000 square feet of office and lab space at Thorndike Road creating roughly 53 new jobs paying an average wage of $70,000. The company plans to invest $25 million for this expansion.”
RPM Wood Finishes Group is a division of the OEM Industrial Group.
This is yet more excellent economic development news for Guilford County, which has been seeing a whole lot of jobs come to the area lately – including a lot of high-paying ones added at Piedmont Triad International Airport.
Needless to say, city and county leaders are thrilled.
Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan is one of those people who’s very happy about the chain of positive economic development news lately – including, of course, this latest announcement.
“This multi-million-dollar investment confirms Greensboro is attracting top-notch companies,” Vaughan said of the new investment and new jobs from RPM. “This center of excellence is another major landmark as we continue to expand our research and development footprint.”
Greensboro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Brent Christensen seems very please lately as well. These days, he may even be as happy as he’s been in the past when his beloved Duke Blue Devils have won national championships in basketball.
“Greensboro and Guilford County’s talented workforce will continue to attract growing companies,” he commented. “With access to more than 100,000 students regionally through our local universities, colleges and community college system, we plan to keep their talent pipeline full.”
The success was a group effort. The Guilford County Economic Development Alliance – which includes the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and High Point Economic Development Corporation – worked together along with the City of Greensboro, Guilford County, Guilford Technical Community College, the Guilford County Workforce Development Board, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, North Carolina Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina in securing OEM Industrial Group’s investment in Guilford County
Awesome. Another win for the democrat majority of Greensboro. Amazing how well we are doing attracting business given all the doom and gloom comments from the modern conservatives in the comments sections. Hmmmm, maybe. Just maybe. They are just nutters who hate anything by the democrats for no other reason than it was accomplished by the democrats.
Sad.