EDC: Three Horry County companies planning to expand, hire 150 workers

Three Horry County companies expect to announce expansions in the next 60 days that will create 150 jobs, officials said Wednesday.

If the projects go as planned, the jobs — which are projected to pay an average wage of more than $20 per hour — would be the first announced since Josh Kay became CEO of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp. (EDC).

Kay wouldn’t reveal the names of the companies or their industries, though he did say they may seek financial incentives from Horry County Council. EDC board members seemed pleased with the news when Kay discussed the potential expansions during the agency’s quarterly meeting.

“We need a lot of those in Horry County,” EDC board member Neyle Wilson said.

The EDC has sought to reshape its image since Kay arrived in November. Before he was hired, the agency had seen two CEOs step down in a two-year period, with the second lasting less than six months on the job.

EDC leaders say Kay has started strong, courting aviation and metal fabrication companies at trade shows and reaching out to site selection firms that help companies relocate.

On Wednesday, Kay told the EDC board that he generated 17 leads during his trade show travels last month and picked up another 14 leads from other sources. In addition to the local businesses planning to expand, he said he’s talking with two other firms in the area about hiring more workers.

“Economic development is a relationship business,” he said. “It’ll take time to build that relationship, so that ultimately we can land that project.”

The EDC receives more than $1 million in public money each year to fund its operations, including incentives funding to encourage outside companies to move to the area or local businesses to expand.

Since the agency reorganized five years ago, the group has seen mixed results.

The first industry expansion the EDC announced was for AvCraft Technical Services, which filed for bankruptcy in March. Some companies that announced they would move to the area either abandoned those plans or saw setbacks, including layoffs.

Yet there have been bright spots. A Star Tek call center has hired more than 340 employees and has committed to a workforce of 615. BauschLinnemann employs 58 and Frontier Communications added 132 jobs.

Altogether, more than 800 workers have been hired through EDC deals, according to the agency’s records. Those positions account for nearly two-thirds of the job commitments from companies that have EDC contracts.

“When a company announces, they’re not going to hire all 49 people at once,” Kay said. “It’s going to take them a five-year period to ramp up. … You’ll see an announcement and then a slow tick up to get to that announced level.”

When asked about the country’s business climate, Kay said manufacturers are beginning to expand, but slowly.

“Cautiously optimistic is probably the best word,” he said. “The manufacturing outside of Horry County that we’re calling on, they have plans to expand. They are seeing need to expand. What they’re trying to evaluate is the best way to do that. … Everybody’s still coming out of the Great Recession. We’re nowhere back to fully recovered, in my opinion.”

Manufacturers are closely monitoring international economic conditions as they try to gauge how to invest their resources, said Dodd Smith, an EDC board member and the president of Metglas Inc., a Conway-based metals manufacturer.

“The world economy, which we deal with every day, is an extremely dynamic place,” Smiths said. “And if you read on the Internet what’s going on in China and what’s going on in Europe, China’s economy is way down and that does have an impact on us.”

During the meeting, Kay also fielded questions about his efforts to land for suppliers for Boeing and Volvo, companies that are building a manufacturing presence in the Lowcountry.

Kay said some Volvo suppliers visited the Charleston area last week and he suspects the Grand Strand could compete for that business in the coming years.

Over the next six to nine months, Kay expects Volvo’s top-tier suppliers will announce new operations near the Berkeley County plant. But in the coming years, smaller suppliers may consider moving and the EDC could attract those businesses, especially with the increase in wage rates and real estate prices in Charleston.

“Volvo suppliers, I think, are a better opportunity for us,” he said. “Mainly because those suppliers are going to have a lot of wage pressure in the Charleston area with Boeing, with Sprinter, with Volvo, with all the other companies that are in the greater Charleston region. … Those suppliers are going to start to move out.”

A major challenge for Horry County is the lack of widespread natural gas availability.

Recently, Kay said he’s been in discussions with state officials about finding ways to bring natural gas here.

“A lot of industrial development needs natural gas,” he said. “And so how do we take that weakness and turn that into a strength for our community?”

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "EDC: Three Horry County companies planning to expand, hire 150 workers."