Industrial supplier bringing 400 jobs to Davidson

N.Y. industrial supplier to open Harbor Place site, expand there by 2017.

Posted: Thursday, Jun. 21, 2012

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Maker of battery components to expand

A Kings Mountain manufacturer of battery materials will hold a grand opening ceremony June 29 for a plant expansion company executives say could make them a hub of the lithium battery industry.

Chemetall Foote Corp., a subsidiary of Rockwood Holdings, Inc. that produces lithium salts and metals for batteries, broke ground on the $56.8 million expansion last spring. Besides a larger manufacturing facility, the project also includes a technology center for research and development.

The expansion of the Chemetall plant is expected to add 5,000 metric tons in production capacity and lead to advances in lithium battery technology for electric cars.

The expansion was funded in part by a $28.4 million grant from the Department of Energy under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Chief financial officer Ron France said the company, which employed more than 100 people before the expansion, has hired more than 30 people to staff the facility and the new technological center, which was not funded by the grant.

The June 29 ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. at the plant site off Interstate 85 in Kings Mountain. Chelsey Dulaney

A national distributor of metalworking and industrial supplies is planning to build a customer service center in Davidson, creating 400 jobs by the end of 2017.

MSC Industrial Direct Co. Inc., based in Melville, N.Y., said Wednesday it plans to make the future 180,000-square-foot building located at Harbor Place a co-headquarters. MSC hopes to complete construction in 2013, and plans to invest more than $31 million in the project.

“MSC has a very aggressive growth plan,” said Doug Jones, MSC’s executive vice president, global supply chain operations, during a news conference. “As we looked ahead, it became apparent that we needed to start laying the groundwork now to ensure that we could handle that growth going forward.”

New positions in executive management, information technology, accounting, human resources, product management marketing and possibly other areas will be created in the Davidson service center. The annual pay for these jobs will average about $79,000, plus benefits, Jones said.

Mecklenburg County’s unemployment rate was 9 percent in April, according to the latest data available from the N.C. Employment Security Division.

Some of the new jobs in Davidson may be filled by existing MSC employees who transfer from the company’s New York headquarters. MSC made an internal announcement about a transfer package option Wednesday, so the company does not yet know how many employees may transfer south.

MSC hopes potential transfers could bring consistency to the new customer service center and help ease the transition into a co-headquarters system, a company spokeswoman said.

The state awarded a Job Development Investment Grant to MSC. If the company meets annual job-creation and capital-investment targets over 12 years, the grant could yield as much as $11.7 million, according to information from Gov. Bev Perdue’s office.

The company has also been awarded a grant worth up to $1.05 million from the state’s One North Carolina Fund.

Mecklenburg County and the Town of Davidson are scheduled to vote on additional grant incentives for MSC.

MSC, founded in 1941, supplies industrial products such as metalworking machinery and workplace safety equipment to customers throughout the U.S.

The company reported second quarter earnings of $60.1 million, an increase of 20.9 percent over the same period last year.

MSC currently employs 64 people in North Carolina at branch offices in Asheville, Camp LeJeune, Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, according to the governor’s office.

The company’s stock price closed at $68.51 on Wednesday, down 29 cents.