A manufacturer of automotive parts is expanding in Person County.
GKN Driveline plans to add 131 jobs over the next five years and invest $24.1 million at its facility in Roxboro. It could receive almost $1.5 million in state and local grants if it meets those investment and hiring goals.
Sec. of Commerce Keith Crisco will be in Person County this afternoon for an economic development announcement.
The 2 p.m. announcement will follow a meeting in Raleigh by the N.C. Commerce Department's Economic Investment Committee, which considers job-creation incentives grants.
The address in Roxboro where Crisco's announcement is taking place is also the site of a manufacturing facility for Eaton Corp., an Ohio-based company that also has operations in Raleigh, Morrisville and Youngsville.
Eaton makes electrical components and power systems for a range of different industries. It is providing the city of Raleigh with electric vehicle recharging stations.
The Roxboro facility, about 55 miles north of Raleigh, makes valvetrain components for the automotive industry.
A Florida company that makes construction materials plans to build a new plant in Roxboro and create 89 jobs over the next three years.
Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that Tampa, Fla.-based CertainTeed Gypsum will build a wallboard manufacturing facility in Person County. The company has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund.
CertainTeed will investment $160 million over three years to build the plant. Salaries for the new jobs will average $55,247, not including benefits.
The Person County average annual wage is $30,524.
CertainTeed makes gypsum wallboard and other products used in commercial and residential construction.
A solar energy farm in Person County, which officially opened today near Roxboro, will be one of the state's most publicly visible renewable energy facilities.
Progress Energy is buying the electricity generated by the 5-acre facility, enough to power about 60 homes, as part of a 20-year contract. The solar power plant began generating electricity eight days ago.
The 650-kilowatt facility, operated by Carolina Solar Energy of Durham, is not the state's largest. Progress Energy has signed a contract for a facility in Laurinburg that will be nearly four times bigger.
But the complex of angled photovoltaic panels at the Person County Business and Industrial Center is visible to passersby on Route 501. And this week, Carolina Solar Energy will launch a public web site that will provide real-time readouts showing how much energy the solar farm is generating, how much power it has generated to date, and how much carbon dioxide it's reducing by offsetting power from Progress Energy's coal-burning power plants.
