Pace Industries will add some 200 jobs in Harrison AR

November 19, 2010|by Jay Scherder, KY3 News | jscherder@ky3.com

HARRISON, Ark. -- Thanks to a tax break brokered by city leaders, Pace Industries hopes to add close to 200 jobs in the coming months.

The furnace inside Pace sits at 1,300 degrees Farenheit. It carrys 50,000 pounds of molten aluminum. The company makes more than 1,000 different products. Its most famous is the Weber grill. The company even has its own robot that likes to draw.

The die casting company is busting at the seams with business, but that wasn't always the case.

"Last year we were one of those folks saying we had to do a layoff," said Pace Industrial Division President Michael Bakaric.

It was the first layoff in almost 10 years for the company.

Things have turned around and Pace is opening its doors to new employees once again, thanks to new business and a new expansion. The expansion should be done next February and will house 10 die cast machines.

"Without the help from what we are going to receive from the city and from the state," said Bakaric, "it would have been extremely difficult."

The city brokered a deal. It made the company exempt from paying sales tax related to the new $4.8 million expansion.

"So then I was able to take that to our mayor and city council and they overwhelmingly approved it," said Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce President Patty Methvin.

For the company, it's about remaining viable for the long term.

"The workforce that actually provides all these great products -- they're more excited than they can stand," Bakaric said.

For the community, it's another avenue to keep the unemployment rate as low as possible.

"It gives us a little peace, a little security, as a community, to know there are jobs to be had out there," said Methvin.

Pace Industries expects a 30- to 40-percent growth in the next six months. The company has hired back every one of the workers that it ladi off. After the new jobs are added, Pace Industries will employ more than 700 people here.

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