Monday, May 14, 2012
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber has released an updated fact sheet touting positive regional developments and favorable media coverage for the Mahoning Valley. The update includes recent events such as a new Brookings Institution report highlighting the increase in manufacturing jobs between 2010 and 2011, oilfield services company Weatherford International's announcement that it would site a facility emplying 150 workers in Youngstown, and the Mahoning Valley's success in scoring the $1 million top prize in Walmart's Fighting Hunger Together Facebook Campaign.
The release, as prepared by the chamber, follows:
Youngstown-Warren, Ohio: Leading the U.S. in its Economic Recovery
The economic engine of the Youngstown-Warren region has been revving in recent years. Since 2008, economic development project announcements have resulted in an impressive $1.5 billion in investment, 5,256 new jobs and 7,855 retained jobs.
Youngstown-Warren: North America’s Center for Utica and Marcellus Shale Business
- • V&M Star will begin operating its new $650 million, one-million-square-foot steel tubular products mill in Youngstown this year, creating 350 jobs in advanced manufacturing.
- • V&M’s sister company, VAM USA, LLC, a manufacturer of premium pipe connections, announced Nov. 30, 2011, that it will locate a 200,000-square-foot finishing plant in Youngstown at a cost of $57 million. The project will create 100 jobs.
- • Exterran broke ground Feb. 28 for a new $13 million plant in Youngstown that will produce equipment for the oil and gas industry. The new facility will employ more than 100 people.
- • Youngstown State University announced plans for a Natural Gas and Water Resources Institute to better prepare its students for jobs related to the Utica Shale.
- • TMK IPSCO is creating 120 jobs at its new local pipe-threading mill in Brookfield.
- • Dearing Compressor and Pump added 56,000 square feet to local operations in Youngstown and created new 93 jobs.
- • DE-CAL, Inc. opened a mechanical contracting and pipe fabrication plant in Youngstown and will employ 140 people over three years.
- • JMC Steel Group’s Wheatland Tube is investing $11.4 million to increase its steel tubular products production capacity and create 20 jobs.
- Valley Electrical Consolidated (VEC) is expanding its operations in the oil and gas construction area and adding 225 jobs.
- • Weatherford International, one of the largest oilfield services companies in the world, will create 150 jobs at the former Polyair building in Youngstown, which it purchased in April 2012 for $3.4 million to serve oil and gas companies in Eastern Ohio.
Positive News is Abundant
2012
- • The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Forum released a survey showing that the Youngstown/Warren metro area ranked third among the 100 largest U.S. metro areas for percentage increase in manufacturing jobs from 2010 to 2011.
- • Youngstown-Warren, Ohio, took the top spot in Walmart's "Fighting Hunger Together" Facebook campaign securing $1 million in grants from Walmart to help fight hunger.
- • Forbes Magazine, in April 2012, listed the Youngstown/Warren area as the fourth best Metro area in the U.S. to raise a family.
- • The Brookings Institutions’ March 2012 tracking of economic recovery in the 100 largest U.S. Metro areas found that Youngstown-Warren was among the 20 metro areas showing the strongest economic improvement. The report showed that in 2010-2011, Youngstown-Warren was one of only six metro areas in the U.S. with manufacturing employment growth of more than 10 percent.
- • The Brookings Institution issued a report in March 2012 that the Youngstown-Warren area led the US metros in export growth from 2009 to 2010. The area’s exports grew by 30 percent during that time.
- • Youngstown, Ohio is the most affordable major metro area in the nation to buy a home, according the National Association of Home Builders 2012 index.
- • Education Week’s annual Quality Counts rankings showed Ohio was rated 10th overall in the country in education reflecting achievement scores, teacher quality and other measures of a state's educational system.
2011
- • The 2010-2011 Ohio School District report cards shows that 60 percent of the 45 school districts in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties were rated Excellent school districts by the Ohio Department of Education, which exceeded the statewide and regional averages on Excellent school statistics. Ninety-one percent of the districts were rated either Excellent or Effective, which also bettered statewide and regional performances.
- • The Youngstown-Warren Metro area had the fourth highest percentage job growth in Ohio in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- • On Nov. 30, the Regional Chamber hosted the Youngstown Ohio Utica & Natural Gas (YOUNG) 2011 conference and trade show, Ohio’s first Utica shale play conference. The conference was completely sold out, attracting a crowd of 1,750 from around the region and the U.S.
- • The Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport reported its highest passenger traffic since 1999.
- • The Youngstown-Warren metro area’s employment grew at the sixth fastest rate among 100 metro areas in the nation in the first three quarters of 2011, according to the December 2011 Brookings Institution Metropolitan Report, while the change in unemployment — a 1.4 percent year-to-year decline — was the eighth-best percentage decrease in America.
- • Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber received one of the top economic development Excellence Awards at the Ohio Economic Development Association’s 2011 Annual Summit in Columbus. The Regional Chamber garnered first place in the Best Project category for its involvement in the V&M Star expansion project.
- • The 21 metropolitan areas of the Great Lakes, including Youngstown-Warren, “are among the most resilient areas coming out of the recession,” The AtlanticCities.com reported based on new data from the Brookings Institution.
- • The Regional Chamber, cities of Youngstown and Girard and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan receive the Team NEO Economic Development Plus Award for their efforts on the V&M Star project.
- • A Brookings Institute study lists the Youngstown-Warren metro area as number one among the 100 largest U.S. metros for its one-year jobless rate decrease in the last year. Brookings also ranks Youngstown-Warren in the top 20 for economic recovery.
- • Forbes magazine says the Youngstown-Warren metro area has the fifth-highest manufacturing job growth in the U.S. during the past year.
- • Youngstown is chosen as one of four cities in the United States to host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation pre-summit conference sponsored by the East-West Center.
- • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the Youngstown-Warren metro area has the third-highest job growth in the U.S. in the last 12 months.
- • The Regional Chamber receives a $12,000 Community Impact Award from Dominion East Ohio for its role in V&M Star’s expansion project.
- • Forbes and Manpower magazines say the Youngstown-Warren metro area is the fourth-best place to find a job in the U.S.
- • Site Selection Magazine cites the Youngstown-Warren area as one of the emerging logistics hubs in the U.S.
Additional Manufacturing/Logistics Growth
- • Purfoods, LLC, a food manufacturer based in Iowa, opened a new facility in 2012 at Youngstown Commerce Park in North Jackson and created 100 jobs.
- • Summer Garden Food Manufacturing of Boardman is investing $11.05 million in an expansion project that will create 58 full-time jobs and retain 58 full-time jobs.
- • Universal Stainless & Alloy Products is investing more than $100 million to bring online a new 205,000-square-foot facility, creating 100 jobs. This plant incorporates first-in-the-U.S. technologies to produce high-strength, specialty steel products.
- • Anderson-Dubose, Inc. broke ground for a $30 million, 155,000-square-foot distribution center and headquarters in Lordstown that will employ 160.
- • Extrudex Aluminum of North Jackson announced a $14 million expansion that will create 25 jobs.
Youngstown-Warren, Ohio Gaining National/International Notice
- • Industry Week Magazine, in an April 18, 2012 story, highlighted the major investment of V&M Star in Youngstown in a story titled “Why Shale Gas Matters to Manufacturing,” noting that “The shale boom could create one million manufacturing jobs by 2025, according to a December 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers.
- • The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch featured the growing economy of Youngstown/Warren in an April 13, 2012 story titled “Utica shale bringing jobs to Eastern Ohio; Liquids-rich shale stokes economic development.”
- • Nikkei, the largest business publication in Japan, ran a March 2, 2012 story “Rust Belt revived by discovery of new gas fields” that centered on the growth of the economy in the Youngstown-Warren area.
- • Agence France Press, the Associated Press of France featured the Regional Chamber and the resurgence of the Youngstown-Warren economy in a March 1, 2012 story and video. The news agency also took a look at the upturn in business at a local plant and Chamber member, Specialty Fab in North Lima.
- • TV crews from Japan, Sweden, Denmark and France were in the Mahoning Valley in February, documenting the economic growth being experienced here.
- • In an Industry Week story in February 2012 titled “Could Shale Gas Create a Manufacturing Renaissance in Ohio?” the writer highlights the $650 million steel pipe mill investment by V&M Star in Youngstown and quoted V&M’s president about the positive reasons the company chose to expand in the Youngstown area.
- • U.S. News and World Report in February 2012 named the Lordstown-built Cruze “The best compact car for the money.”
- • Inside Business, Cleveland ran a story in February 2012 headlined “Youngstown Readies for Rebirth: Industry insiders are calling it America’s next gold rush, and it is taking place right here in Ohio.” It detailed the growth and opportunity taking place in the Mahoning Valley.
- • CNN Money, in a video piece on oil and gas shale development in January 2012, said “America’s next boom town is … Youngstown. (You guessed that, right?)”
- • Bloomberg News Service, in a January 10, 2012 story titled “Youngstown opens mills again as states jockey for fracking jobs,” touted the emergence of the Youngstown-Warren as a key player in shale development.
- • A Wall Street Journal Op-ed piece, “Where the Jobs Are” in October 2011 talks about a new $650 million steel-pipe mill being built in Youngstown.
- • An NPR piece “Gas drilling boom brings new life to Steel Industry” on Oct. 13, 2011, noted that the shale gas development boom in Ohio and Pennsylvania is bringing industrial towns like Youngstown back to life.
- • A story October 2011 by The AtlanticCities.com, titled “These cities are shaking the rust off the belt” noted that cities like Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron and Toledo are among the most resilient areas coming out of the recession.”
- • A story Oct. 5, 2011 in the international Financial Times headlined “US shale gas bonanza: New wells to draw on”: noted the construction of the $650 million V&M Star pipe mill in Youngstown and ”When we watch the national news about the state of the US economy being negative, we’re not seeing that here. We’re seeing the optimism…People thought they’d never see an industrial investment of this scale again and now they see this 1m sq ft plant going up. It really gives heart to the psychology of everyone in the area.”
- • The September 2011 story in the New York Times, titled “Deep recession sharply altered jobless map” noted that the “rate of recovery in Rust Belt areas around Youngstown and Akron, two Ohio cities that were hit hard, has outpaced that of former boomtowns like Colorado Springs and Tucson.”
- • The October 2011 story in the Detroit News headlined “Diesel Chevy Cruze coming to Lordstown, Ohio plant”: noted the highly impressive first-year sales of the new Chevrolet Cruze and the good management-labor relations at the Lordstown plant where the car is made resulted in the plant getting to make the new diesel Cruze.
- • Forbes Magazine says Ohio’s oil billions will unleash a manufacturing tech boom in Ohio and in Youngstown in September.
- • Wall Street Journal says the new hot spot for energy in the U.S. is in the Youngstown/Warren area in September.
- • Wall Street Journal features the revitalization of manufacturing in the Youngstown/Warren area and the V&M Star project in August.
Source: Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber. May 2012.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
