Kinston, N.C.'s  Perseverance Pays Off

Rural North Carolina community hits it big with recent announcement.

By Don Hampton

In September 2008, Spirit Aerosystems broke ground on a new facility in rural Kinston, N.C. The facility is a huge victory for this community, and is the reward for years of hard work and dedication.

The ceremony drew a great deal of attention and prompted former Gov. Mike Easley to suggest that the facility would be "one of the world’s most advanced aerospace fabrication and assembly plants. This groundbreaking represents a tremendous opportunity for Kinston and Lenoir County," Easley said. The company is the first major tenant for Kinston’s Global TransPark (GTP). The staff of the GTP has been battling for more than 15 years to land a deal like this.

Changing the face of Eastern North Carolina.

Darlene Waddell, executive director of the GTP, sees this facility as a gigantic step forward in changing the area into an aeronautics manufacturing hub. "It is going to change the face of eastern North Carolina," she said. Spirit will invest $600 million in the facility, which, when fully operational, will employ about 1,100 people. The company is the world’s largest supplier of commercial aircraft assemblies and components, with a client list that includes Airbus, Boeing, Gulfstream, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft. They employ 14,000 people worldwide. Spirit plans to make fuselages for the Airbus A350 XWB at its new rural North Carolina facility.

One of the major benefits of this announcement is the nature of the jobs being created. The company reports that it plans to pay an average of more than $48,000 per year, which is more than $20,000 greater than the local average wage. The company expects to draw employees from a 50-or 60-mile radius.

Spirit and the city of Kinston are thoroughly convinced this facility will only mean that more companies will consider locating in the area. Don Blake, director of strategic initiatives for Spirit, expects suppliers will follow it to eastern North Carolina. "They (the suppliers) could create just as many jobs as we do," he said. "Job growth could be 50 to 100 new jobs a year. We want to embed ourselves early into the community," Blake said.

Even the recent economic downturn has not greatly affected Spirit’s business. Marci Johnson, executive director of sales and marketing, reports that the company has seen record sales recently and even has a substantial backlog of orders currently.

The impact of this announcement is about more than just job creation and revenue. Officials say it will be two years before the company makes a product at the new facility, but that doesn’t mean it’s not already having an effect. Mark Pope, executive director of economic development for Kinston, said, "The Spirit team has been very involved already with the community and the whole region making themselves visible and telling the company’s story."

Catching the ‘Spirit.’

Global TransPark was created in 1991. Developers have worked hard to land a fish this big, coming very close five years ago in the pursuit of Boeing. While they made the company’s short list of potential sites, they ultimately lost out. "It’s obviously a valuable property," said Jim Fain, the outgoing state Secretary of Commerce. "You just have to find the right tenant."

While Boeing eventually didn’t choose Kinston, the experience of pursuing the company led to that "right tenant." Boeing and its project location firm (J.M. Mullis Inc.) got a good look at the advantages of Kinston and that information opened the door. "Boeing realized the assets we had," said Gene Conti, vice chairman of the Global TransPark Authority. He pointed to the park’s infrastructure, training center and work force as those assets. "All those things … contributed to Spirit looking in the first place at the TransPark."

When area officials discovered Spirit might be considering this community for its facility, they devoted 18 months to landing the deal. Spirit announced on May 14 they had landed a contract to build fuselage components for the Airbus 350. That announcement came literally hours before the announcement that company leaders had chosen Kinston for their facility.

Among the many other selling points used to win the company over were the community’s access to the port facilities in Morehead City and an outstanding work force training facility. "That’s a state-of-the-art facility," said Waddell. The agreement Spirit signed with the GTP gives the company majority use of the training facility, which will be renamed the Spirit Aerosystems Advanced Technology Center.

Kinston’s location is also a major benefit for Spirit, as the company will have easy access to four different modes of transportation for products and people – highway, air, rail and sea.

Quality of Life

Another significant factor in the decision was quality of life. "The quality of life in eastern North Carolina is pretty attractive," said N.C. Commerce Secretary Fain.

Lenoir County has a population base of 58,000 people. There is outstanding fishing, boating and a host of other outdoor activities to be found. Four major colleges are located within a short distance, along with 11 community colleges in the region. The area boasts a moderate climate, and is in close proximity to the advantages of the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill).

In other words, quality of life is high and cost of living is moderately low - which made Kinston an obvious choice for Spirit Aerosystems.

It seems apparent that, while it took 15 years to bring the first major tenant to Kinston’s Global TransPark, it will take a whole lot less time to see more announcements like this. This is a tremendous breakthrough for a rural community that worked hard to find the "right tenant" and succeeded.