How family, football and fabrication helped land Lancaster’s next big employer
Just before college football season started, Jamie Gilbert met with officials at a Nebraska company he thought might be a fit for a Lancaster manufacturing site. Optimism was high. The season didn’t turn out how Gilbert thought in might for Clemson, or for the Cornhuskers.
But all wasn’t lost from the trip.
“When you land a company that you really want to have in your community, it’s special,” Gilbert said Wednesday afternoon, at an introduction event for Chief Buildings. “That’s what is happening today.”
Gilbert, executive director with Lancaster County Economic Development, said the 992 Quality Drive building in Lancaster Business Park that’s been vacant more than three years will have 58 new jobs the first year. Chief Buildings will invest $22.1 million in the project with an expected 102 jobs within five years.
“These are high-salary, skilled positions,” Gilbert said.
Chief Industries began in 1954. Chief Buildings began in 1966, producing metal buildings. The family-run businesses know their workers and are good corporate citizens, Gilbert said. On his two-day trip to Nebraska he was impressed not just with the metal fabrication business, but with its vision.
D.J. Eihusen is CEO, president and board chair for Chief Industries. Those leadership positions have been in the family since its founding. His daughter may well be the next to lead, but not before the certified welder at school in Nebraska works on the floor making beams. That way she will know the company from bottom to top.
“That told me everything I needed to know about the quality of the company here today,” Gilbert said.
Optimism runs both ways.
Eihusen said it was important to him, in a flyover state, to have Lancaster County and area officials come to his facility to vet it. Chief Buildings has plants in Nebraska and Indiana. Plans for a third date back to 2007 when Lancaster was one of three finalists, all in the Carolinas. Recession hit in 2008 and plans were put on hold.
Though COVID-19 presented a massive disruption to people’s lives, Eihusen said, it did offer opportunity for manufacturers.
“We knew that we need to add capacity to meet our customers’ needs,” he said. “Once that decision was made, you had to decide ‘well where’s it going to be?’”
Chief leaders met with officials in multiple states. This area has suppliers and customers. The company has more than 375 South Carolina projects already, with 14,000 tons of steel and almost 5 million square feet of construction.
“We hope that this plant services about a 500-mile radius,” said Dave Koubek, president and general manager of Chief Buildings.
Football wasn’t the only collegiate discussion that drew Chief to Lancaster. Welding instructors and workforce were key in recruiting.
“The community colleges .. are by far the best you’ll find anywhere in the country,” Koubek said.
As a builder of buildings, it’s a little odd locating in an existing space but that move was intentional, Eihusen said.
“The reason we did that was to get to market much quicker,” he said.
Rather than two years of construction, production should begin this fall. Equipment already is ordered. There are backlogs, but it should start to arrive in August.
“We’ll start looking to hire staff probably in July, beginning of August, and get them trained for when the equipment comes in,” Koubek said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t look for a manufacturing manager and some other key positions right away, some of our supervisors.”
That timeline would put manufactured product out in September or October. In introducing company officials Wednesday, Koubek made note of his hiring team.
“Already he’s on the lookout for a manufacturing manager, a maintenance manufacturer and a HR person,” Koubek said. “So if anybody’s got contacts, that’s our starting point for hiring.”
The company has 400 builders that sell its products in the U.S. The company produces about 1,000 buildings per year. There is a backlog of orders now.
“We really have enough to feed this plant right now if we can get it up and going,” Koubek said.
Steve Harper, Lancaster County Council chair who also visited the Chief team in Nebraska, is pleased with the jobs and pay but also in the way the company runs.
“They build on relationships,” Harper said. “Relationships with dealers, their builders, their employees, their vendors, their community.”
Steven Pearce is president and CEO of the South Carolina I-77 Alliance. His group markets an area from York and Lancaster counties to northern Columbia for prospective businesses.
“Every time we have a new company that comes to this region it furthers the story and the narrative that this is a great place to do business,” Pearce said. “We all call this region home. We know what a great place this is to live and raise a family and play, and to own and operate a business.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 1:14 PM.
