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Virginia’s aCorridor
has a strong existing industry base. Recent announcements reveal
a developing food and beverage cluster and a growing automotive-related
sector joining existing businesses involved in high-tech manufacturing,
plastics, furniture manufacturing, defense, and distribution.
In May 2007, Gates
Corporation, North America's largest non-tire rubber
manufacturer of automotive and industrial products, announced it
is locating its first Virginia facility in the aCorridor.
Other major businesses
to locate in the region are Gatorade®
and Amcor
PET Packaging,
a leading manufa cturer
of plastic packaging for the global beverage, food and non-food
industries.
Other recent newcomers
include the manufacturing headquarters of Reline
America Inc. to Saltville in Smyth County, American
Wood Fibers and Wellborn
Cabinet.
Recent significant existing industry
expansions include Bristol's Prime
Choice Foods,
maker of organic snack foods; Universal
Fiber Systems
in Washington County, a leading producer of fibers and yarns
for carpet, upholstery, automotive, industrial and other textile
applications; Turman
Hardwood Flooring in Galax;
Klöckner
Pentaplast of Rural Retreat in Wythe County,
manufacturer of plastic film and shrink wrap; and Food
City of Washington County, a retail supermarket
chain.
AFG Glass and Pepsi Bottling
Group also located in the aCorridor in 2004. AFG began operations
in its new $30 million glass-coating facility in Abingdon, and Pepsi
opened a new 334,000 sq. ft. plant in Wytheville.
AFG,
the second largest flat glass manufacturer
in North America, selected
the Oak Park Center for Business and Industry in Abingdon as the
location for its modern facility after visiting 31 sites in five
states. The new plant produces low-emissivity and solar control
coatings designed to reduce energy costs.
AFG’s coatings also
are used to coat front surface mirrors such as projection televisions,
touch panels, plasma displays, and solar panels for geothermal and
photovoltaic uses, as well as electrochromic coatings for “smart”
windows of the future.
Recognizing the strategic
benefits of the crossroads of I-81 and I-77 as a location for its
new facility, Pepsi
Bottling Group opened its $65 million, 300,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art
bottling plant in June 2004 in Wytheville.
Pepsi Bottling Group's
Chairman and CEO said the Wytheville facility that employs 200 was
the first Pepsi bottling plant built from the ground up in almost
a decade. In 2006, this Pepsi facility was named Plant of the Year
by Beverage World magazine.
Bland County
is home to General
Injectables & Vaccines, Inc., the nation's largest independent
marketer of pharmaceutical and healthcare products directly to physicians.
The growing automotive
cluster of companies includes TRW
Automotive, a well known manufacturer of rack and pinion
steering systems, Dana
Corporation, automotive parts manufacturer,
Longwood Elastomers, an established company that makes
engineered rubber products for the transportation industry, and
TNT Logistics, Inc., which operates a tire and wheel assembly
division in Virginia’s aCorridor.
Wytheville
Technologies, the first tenant in the 1,200-acre
Progress Park in Wytheville, is the newest automotive-related company
to locate in the aCorridor. Since its arrival in 2001, Wytheville
Technologies has built a second facility in the park where its state-of-the-art
plating line does most all plating for Toyota's North American plants.
This U.S. operation of Japan-based Somic Ishikawa makes precision
steering components for Toyota and others and shared its first facility
with Atsumi Car Equipment, maker of automotive wheel components,
and Maine-based Brewer Automotive Components, Inc., maker
of automobile steering rack ends utilizing modern high-tech machinery.
Brewer occupies the original facility and Wytheville Technologies
and Atsumi operate in the new building.
Leading employers in the
aCorridor include Bristol
Compressors, which provides compressors to original equipment
manufacturers and wholesale distributors in six continents and over
50 countries. Another is Klöckner
Pentaplast of America Inc., whose plant in Rural Retreat,
Virginia uses the most advanced calendaring and extrusion technologies
to make specially formulated films for pharmaceutical, medical device,
food, electronics and general purpose thermofoam packaging, as well
as printing and specialty applications. A $34 million expansion
took place in 2002, and a $17
million expansion announced in July 2005 focused on a film production
center for United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated
vinyl films that will service the pharmaceutical and other FDA markets.
An aCorridor company recorded
a production milestone in the defense industry in 2002. The Boeing
Company recognized General
Dynamics Armament and Technical Products employees in the
Marion, Virginia plant for delivering the 100th set of composite
components for the C-17 transport plane. One of the top 25 suppliers
(out of 600) to Boeing, the Marion General Dynamics plant has been
part of the C-17 program for 14 years, manufacturing nose and tail
radomes, winglets, main and nose-gear landing doors, and leading
and trailing edge flap panels.
 Others
keeping high-tech manufacturing technologies alive in the aCorridor
include wood cabinet door maker Merillat
Industries LLC, whose Atkins, Virginia plant was recognized
for excellence in lean manufacturing and awarded the prestigious
Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing in 2003.
Another successful manufacturer in the aCorridor is Royal
Mouldings
(now
a Georgia Gulf company) which years ago started producing
quality wood moulding products in its Marion, Virginia facility.
Today’s business is exclusively resin extrusions that replace
wood and metal - cellular polymer mouldings and millwork products
found in Home Depot, Lowe’s, 84 Lumber and other stores that
cater to do-it-yourselfers, remodelers and builders.
Another well known name
in manufacturing, ABB
Power T&D Company, Inc., also operates in the aCorridor.
ABB manufactures transformers at its Bland County facility.
K-VA-T
Food Stores, Inc., parent company of an enterprising group
of 92 Food City supermarkets in three states, dates back to a 1955
family venture into the retail grocery business and remains a strong
existing company headquartered in the aCorridor.
Food City is investing
more than $19
million to expand its current distribution facility,
located on Hillman Highway in Washington County. The project – the
construction of a 164,000 square foot freezer distribution facility
-- will create 110 new jobs.
K-VA-T also owns and operates
Mid-Mountain Foods, a million sq. ft. warehousing and distribution
complex in Abingdon, using  a
sophisticated computerized warehouse system that literally takes
charge of a product from purchase order to loading to shipping to
the store. With a computer on every forklift, this largest grocery
distribution center in the region keeps 75 tractors and 300 trailers
rolling 18 to 20 hours a day.
Furniture manufacturing continues
in Galax, Virginia with Vaughn
Furniture Company, Vaughn-Bassett Furniture and Webb
Furniture leading employers in this aCorridor city. The three
companies are part of a coalition of domestic furniture makers who
are asking the U.S. government for help in competing with imported
furniture from China. They have joined with 17 U.S. companies in
filing an anti-dumping petition with the U. S. Department of Commerce
and the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Two companies in Hillsville,
Virginia are high-tech examples of textiles and apparel manufacturing.
Kentucky Derby Hosiery Company purchased one of the first shell
buildings in the Carroll County Industrial Park in 1994 and operates
a high-tech sock knitting operation in the 56,000 sq. ft. facility.
 Magnolia
Manufacturing, Inc., a division of Parkdale Mills, Inc.,
produces ring spun yarn at its Hillsville facility considered to
be an example of the latest innovative technology at work. From
its beginning, the Hillsville plant has been considered as more
than a manufacturing facility by its parent Parkdale, the industry
leader in the production of cotton and cotton blend yarns. Magnolia
Manufacturing’s physical plant, equipment and unconventional
layout are designed to ensure maximum flexibility and to replace
labor intensive process with cutting edge technology.
R & D and prototyping
are performed in many of the aCorridor’s progressive companies.
At any one time at privately held Strongwell,
headquartered in Bristol, Virginia, more than 20 active R &
D projects are in progress to find solutions for customers, to test
new raw materials or to develop products or processes for the future.
Strongwell, with its Highlands
Division located in Washington County, is both the world's largest
pultruder of fiber reinforced polymer composites and North America's
largest polymer concrete precaster.
 At
the Nautilus manufacturing facility in Independence, Virginia,
engineering and prototyping take place at The Nautilus Group’s
only Virginia plant that manufactures and distributes commercial
strength fitness equipment. The Independence facility is a vital
operation of The Nautilus Group which spent $4.5 million for research
and development in 2002.
Small businesses started
by native entrepreneurs hoping to fulfill a niche also play a big
part in the success of existing industry in the aCorridor. Two local
companies, Musser Lumber Sales and Camrett
Logistics were honored by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce
as two of Virginia’s Fantastic 50 fastest growing businesses
in the state. Both Wythe County companies received this honor for
consecutive years.
Camrett offers expedited
services to and from any point in the continental United States
and Canada, providing cargo vans, trucks and tractor-trailers for
same-day and next-day deliveries. Headquartered in Rural Retreat,
Virginia, Camrett also operates Camrett Dedicated Logistics, Inc.
to specialize in fleet management and dedicated logistics.
Musser
Lumber Sales began as a two-man sawmill in 1967, and today
has more than 70 employees in the family-owned business that specializes
in kiln dried and green lumber for furniture, flooring and cabinet
companies and distribution yards.
Another regional entrepreneur
created TEDS, Inc., a privately
held software development company, in 1980. The company was launched
with $400 and a vision to understand customers and work with them
to devise the best technology solution. Today the company boasts
international clients and millions of users of its software.
Universal
Companies, Inc. operates in a new headquarters facility
in the Oak Park Center for Business and Industry in Abingdon. The
company was created by a local woman and her father. Universal has
been serving the spa industry with innovative products, equipment,
supplies, and services for 20 years.
Universal offers a full
spectrum of products and services, including training, education,
consulting, and a 200+ page resource catalog of the world’s
best spa elements. Universal Companies has been honored with the
SBAF Exporter of the Year Award in 2003, the Greater Tri-Cities
Business of the Year Award in 2001 and the National Association
of Women Business Owners Diamond Award in 2000.
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