Business 2013 Look Ahead: Tulsa-area manufacturing projects to aid job growth
By BY KYLE ARNOLD World Staff Writer on Jan 6, 2013, at 2:25 AM Updated on 1/06/13 at 4:07 AM
Crews put up a Valmont pole in southeast Oklahoma. Valmont will soon have a plant near the Tulsa Port of Catoosa. Courtesy
Manufacturing
In just 12 years, natural gas plant builder Thomas Russell Co. grew from a Tulsa startup to a $750 million company.
Verallia North America's glass plant in Sapulpa is shutting down one furnace for the rest of the year because of slack demand.
Manufacturers will look to build on two years of industry jobs growth in 2013, and several new area projects and expansions aided by the energy section should do just that.
But the Tulsa area will have to bid goodbye to an old manufacturing industry giant and wait for the dust to settle on other developments.
The Tulsa area added 2,700 manufacturing positions between January and October after adding 3,500 during 2011. However, numbers are still shy of pre-recession highs.
One new project that should help those figures is a new 123,000-square-foot plant near the Tulsa Port of Catoosa by utility pole maker Valmont Industries, Inc.
The Omaha, Neb.-based firm plans to hire 70 people in 2013 at the plant when it is finished sometime near the end of the year. Plans call for hiring another 30 employees in 2014.
The facility will make electric transmission line poles, the kind of large towers that carry power lines over long distances.
Industrial manufacturer Clear Edge Filtration Inc. should finish work early this year on a new factory and corporate headquarters plans to add 180 employees this year after moving two factories from upstate New York.
Tulsa will also bid goodbye to the historic Ford Auto Glass plant, which was repurchased from struggling Zeledyne LLC this year by Ford Motor Co.
Ford plans to demolish the plant and sell the property after Zeldyne closed the factory in June 2011 and let go of nearly 200 workers.
Original Print Headline: Tulsa-area manufacturing projects to aid job growth
Manufacturing
In just 12 years, natural gas plant builder Thomas Russell Co. grew from a Tulsa startup to a $750 million company.
Verallia North America's glass plant in Sapulpa is shutting down one furnace for the rest of the year because of slack demand.
