San Angelo Lands Turbine Manufacturing Plant
Successfully recruiting a new business or industry is always a major plus for any economic development organization, but when the new player in town has the potential to anchor an entire new industry sector, a good thing gets even better.
That’s the anticipation surrounding the Martifer Group’s decision to locate Martifer Energy Systems, its North American energy-industry operation, in San Angelo. The $40 million wind-turbine tower manufacturing plant represents the first large-scale group of new manufacturing jobs in the area in quite some time and, more importantly, positions San Angelo as a hub for wind-energy and related companies.
When Martifer officials began looking around the United States and Mexico for a site in late 2007, San Angelo officials quickly put together a proposal and sent it to their counterparts in the state’s economic development office. By January 2008, San Angelo had become a contender, and things only heated up from there, says Patrick Malloy, vice president of economic development for the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce.
“The first visit to our city occurred on January 21” Malloy says. “At that time, several states and Mexico were under consideration as well. The strength that we brought to the table early in the process was our team approach to economic development. Our approach is to make the business visitor as comfortable as possible in knowing that they have allies in San Angelo to make certain their project can succeed.”
That first meeting included chamber staff, state economic development officials, the mayor, railroad and power-provider representatives, as well as parties from area colleges and universities, landowners, construction companies, and more.
“In my opinion, meetings with these local and regional resources put San Angelo onto Martifer’s short list,” Malloy says. “The actions of our Texas House representative and the Texas Department of Transportation’s willingness to improve a railroad bridge in Ballinger to accommodate Martifer’s rail transportation needs, and the incentive package provided by the San Angelo Development Corp., city of San Angelo, and Tom Green County were the final steps in the successful site selection process.”
In addition to being a game-changer as far as reinvigorating the local manufacturing economy goes, the new plant also could anchor an industry that’s predicted to do nothing but grow in and around Texas for the next several years, if not decades.
“While we have been able to attract more than 2,000 jobs in data centers, customer support services, debt collection services, medical claims processing and other similar companies, we have lost more than 1,500 manufacturing jobs,” Malloy says. “Martifer Energy Systems brings some of those jobs back to San Angelo, and with their diverse business models, they also bring with them the possibilities of biofuels, solar energy and other alternate energy production technologies. With a wind tower plant being built in San Angelo, we also can look forward to other components of this energy system being built in San Angelo in the future. In the short term, we can also expect their manufacturing suppliers to co-locate their facilities in San Angelo.”
