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WEDNESDAY » FEBRUARY 27, 2013 » GALLATIN, TENNESSEE » SERVING SUMNER COUNTY SINCE 1840
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County slows capital projects
EMPLOYMENT PICTURE BRIGHTENS
Bond could offer funding alternative By Jesse Hughes For the Gallatin News Examiner
Pleas Ford, an operator at RCTENN in Gallatin, assembles a Stanley toolbox. The company is looking to add upwards of 25 new jobs as part of a company expansion. SARAH KINGSBURY/GALLATIN NEWS EXAMINER
Gallatin jobs on the rise
Manufacturing plants see growth By Josh Cross and Sarah Kingsbury Gallatin News Examiner
RCTENN President Rob Coleman has an unusual problem for a manufacturing company emerging from a national recession. “We just need more room,” he said Monday during a tour of the Commerce Way plant where the business is based in Gallatin. The company Coleman operates is one of a handful in the manufacturing industry in Gallatin that have been expanding in the past year. Since 2012, ABC Fuel Systems has added 29 jobs, Hoeganaes Corp., has added 39, Salga Plastics hired 136, and Simpson Strong Tie increased its workforce by 40. To keep up with the growth, RCTENN, which manufactures plastic products, is build-
ing a 23,000-square-foot warehouse and plans to hire a combination of between 25 and 35 production workers, process technicians and maintenance employees. “Our customers are doing very well,” Coleman said. Company officials have begun the process of hiring the new workers through a staffing agency, and pending final approval Monday by the Gallatin Planning Commission, hoped to break ground on the warehouse expansion Tuesday. The expansion project is scheduled for completion by June 1. Those jobs will mean bigger things for the city and county as a whole, said James Fenton, the director of Gallatin’s Economic Development Agency, because each of those industrial production hires equates to more employees in the retail and service sectors.
Rob Coleman, president of RCTENN, stands in the company’s 30,000-square-foot Gallatin warehouse. The company is looking to add an additional 23,000 square feet to keep up with increasing demand. SARAH KINGSBURY/GALLATIN NEWS EXAMINER
“Manufacturing for the most part has a much larger multiplier than almost anything else that’s out there,” he said. Whether caused by the success of the city’s production plants or not, Paige Brown, executive director of the Gallatin Area Chamber of Commerce, said she has seen a change in the local economy. “The indicators are that things are improving for local merchants and services,” Brown said. “We just hope that it sustains and continues to grow.” Larger-scale examples of
THE BELL TOWLES
Olympic bid would bring gold to Sumner I’ve always been of the mindset that if I can’t get to the Olympics, I’m all for bringing the Olympics to us. Okay, fellow Sumner Countians, this is it; our best and biggest chance, the opportunity of a lifetime, literally. Nashville is among the 35 cities recently contacted by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) to gauge their potential interest in ponying up to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. For that, I’m game. Surely, you didn’t think the USOC’s invite to Nashville was limited to just Nashville proper, did you? The current Summer Olympics docket includes more than two dozen sports spread among numerous venues, so there’s plenty to go around.
» GROWTH, 4A
School system veteran’s last day is March 27 By Jennifer Easton Gallatin News Examiner
» MIKE TOWLE When Atlanta hosted the 1996 Summer Games, kayaking and canoeing events, for example, were held on the Ocoee in southeastern Tennessee, about 100 miles from downtown Atlanta. So what can I do to help? What will it take to get the Olympics
» TOWLE, 4A
MetroMix.com
» CAPITAL, 3A
Conner takes job with state
Pat Conner, Sumner Schools coordinator for Safe Schools, Healthy Students, has announced she’ll leave after 27 years with the school district to oversee the Tennessee Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Supportive Schools. Conner steps into her new role as executive director April 1. “I was excited about the opportunity and it came at a time when I was looking for a challenge,” Conner said. As executive director,
233,000 people in Sumner County read our newspapers and use our websites every week. GallatinNewsExaminer.com
service industry growth can also be found in companies like ServPro, which is headquartered in Gallatin. The disaster cleanup business has expanded in recent months with plans to add 94 new jobs. And in 2011, National HealthCare sought a tax break from the Gallatin City Council to bring a 92-unit skilled nursing facility that company officials said would add 92 jobs. That project is on schedule for its planned 2014 opening, Fenton said.
Even as the Sumner County Commission and Board of Education build on their icy relationship over making school improvements, the County Budget Committee is seeking to stop or slow capital spending projects. During the Feb. 11 budget meeting, members deferred for a month schools Director Dr. Del Phillips’ request to fund the 4.5 percent architectural fees for a proposed $8 million addition to Hendersonville High School and $4.5 million addition to Gallatin High School. The vote was 3-2 with Chairman Jerry Stone voting for deferral along with Vice Chairman Moe Taylor, who made the motion, and Com. Jim Vaughn, who seconded. Coms. Mike Guthrie and Shawn Utley voted against the motion to delay it until they could get more information. Com. Paul Freels was absent and the committee was also short its other member from an unfilled vacancy. Com. Frank Freels, a nonmember, expressed his concerns about trying to do too much, saying there was “no way to have the money” to do all of the projects at once unless the county decided to “hold off on everything else.” Members were not happy that about half of the $8 million of the HHS project was to replace an ice-build heating and cooling system that has had problems. It is the only one in the county. The proposed new system is not geothermal, Phillips said. Geothermal was considered but ruled out. “We were estimating it would take about 130 years to pay it back,” he said. Vaughn said he also wanted to be sure the plans took into consideration any safety design changes. Asked by Stone what his priority was with the two high school projects, Phillips said Hendersonville High School “would be the first priority.” After Phillips left the meeting, the committee, at the end of its agenda, discussed what would happen with capital funds if the county took on too many
she’ll oversee the state’s programs related to alternative and nontraditional education, dropout prevention, extended learning, and school safety. The department is responsible for administering $47 million in grants to local school districts for programs including Century Conner Community Learning Centers, Lottery for Education Afterschool Programs (LEAPs), Safe Schools Act of 1998, the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, the Safe and Supportive Schools Grant, Youth Empower Initiative and
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Family Resource Center. Director of Schools Del Phillips said he could understand why the state would select Conner for the position. “I think it speaks well of Pat and the work she has done here in Sumner County that she was asked to assume the role of supervising school safety for Tennessee,” Phillips said. Conner began her work in drug and alcohol prevention education in 1986. The daughter of two alcoholic parents, she has first-hand experience with issues many students wrestle with when they leave school. Her 27-year career with Sumner County Schools began by chance after she attended a Wednesday
» CONNER, 3A