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600 New Jobs added

Chesterfield County welcomed Gov. Jim Gilmore earlier this month for the announcement by Capital One that it will locate a new customer contact center in Chester.

The new facility will result in the creation of 600 new jobs in the county. Capital One will occupy 74,000 square feet in the River’s Bend development at 701 Liberty Way by August.

“I am pleased to welcome this latest investment by a respected and vibrant corporate citizen such as Capital One,” Gilmore said. “Capital One has used cutting edge technology to become a true Virginia success story, and I am excited by its continued growth and strong commitment to its home state.”

Capital One Financial was founded in Virginia in 1994 and is one of the nation’s leading consumer credit companies. With more than 12 million customers, Capital One has been able to utilize some of the most sophisticated information technology programs in the industry to identify new customers and help them meet their financial goals. The company also is expanding into other consumer lending products through Capital One Bank and Capital One F.S.B.

“Capital One has achieved such rapid growth since it became independent because of our excellent customer service and willingness to embrace technology to build our market share,” said Richard D. Fairbank, Capital One’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Nigel Morris, the company’s President and Chief Operating Officer, added, “As we carefully evaluated our expansion plans, our experience with the highly-skilled and knowledgeable workforce in the metro Richmond area led us to conclude that we need look no further than our own home base as the ideal location for this new facility.”

More than 4,000 of Capital One’s 6,000 employees worldwide are located in the Richmond metro area.

The establishment of a toll-free hotline for local residents to use in order to learn more about the new employment opportunities at the Chesterfield risk operations facility also was announced. Prospective employees should call 1-800-77-HIRE-1 to learn more about how to become a Capital One associate.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Chesterfield County Department of Economic Development worked together to assist the company with its decision. The Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide workforce training services.

Coghill Composition Company, Inc., a high quality book typesetting and graphics company, has constructed a new, 10,000 square foot, state-of-the-art typesetting facility in the Chesterfield County Industrial Airpark. The company is new to Chesterfield County and designed the building to accommodate a larger workforce that will be needed to handle an expected increase in the number of titles typeset annually.

The company, which began operating in Richmond in 1960, was founded by John M. Coghill, Sr. and is now owned and operated by his four sons, John, James, William and Robert. Coghill Composition sets type for printing and publishing companies nationwide.

Using special software designed for rapid electronic pagination of books, and a cottage industry for keying manuscripts and proofreading, Coghill outputs thousands of finished pages daily. Major publishers routinely call on Coghill to produce “instant books” on hot topics. Some recent titles are Death of a Princess; Don’t Tell Dad, by Peter Fonda; and Me and My Shadows, written by Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland.

Numerous titles of the famous and infamous, current events, movie an TV personalities have been completed in recent years. Scholarly text books are regularly produced for prestigious universities all over the country.

Coghill was assisted in their location search by the Chesterfield Department of Economic Development.

Site work has begun on the redesigned and upgraded interchange at I-95 and Woods Edge and Ruffin Mill Roads. Buildings have been razed and land cleared for the 80 acres required to build this interchange. Completion of the first phase, with an estimated cost of $20.7 million, is scheduled for late 1999. (Map)

When completed, this interchange will provide a greatly improved and efficient road infrastructure for the many industries and their employees utilizing it. In addition, it will enhance our efforts to recruit more companies to locate in this attractive Enterprise Zone area.

Maruchan Virginia, Inc., the Japanese-owned ramen noodle manufacturer, today celebrated the grand opening of their most recent plant expansion in a ceremony held at their Chesterfield County facility at 8101 Whitepine Road in the County’s Airport Industrial Park.

The company has expanded their existing plant by 99,000 square feet and will construct an additional 105,000 square feet of warehouse space. Forty new employees have been hired as a result of the expansion. Former Governor George Allen, who had met with the parent company in Japan while serving as Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, was a special guest and made remarks at today’s ceremony.

The company manufactures 20 different flavors of Maruchan Ramen noodles and 22 flavors of Maruchan Instant Lunch. Though the company produces product for worldwide distribution, some of the product from this most recent expansion will be exported to Russia. Local customers include Ukrop’s Supermarkets, Hannaford Brothers, Rack & Sack, Food Lion, Walmart and Costco Warehouse.

According to N. Kaneshige, plant manager of the Chesterfield facility, “We started our noodle operation here in Chesterfield County in 1990. Since that time we have experienced growth in our sales that far exceeded our expectations. Fortunately, our production has been able to meet the increased sales demand, however, our achievement was only made possible with the assistance and cooperation we have received from both the state and local government offices.”

Maruchan Virginia, Inc. is a subsidiary of Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd and located in Chesterfield in 1989. They purchased 23.5 acres in the Chesterfield Airport Industrial Park, constructed a 160,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant with two production lines and hired 50 employees. By 1992, the company was utilizing four production lines, had hired an additional 100 employees and completed the construction of an additional 100,000 square feet of warehouse space. The cumulative total space constructed, including this announcement, is in excess of 460,000 square feet. The plant payroll has grown from the original 50 employees in 1989 to nearly 300 people today.

The 3rd Annual Virginia Works Conference, entitled Workforce Development – A Shared Responsibility, was held on October 30, 1997 at John Tyler Community College. The event attracted nearly 200 attendees who heard remarks from keynote speaker Dr. John Tobin, Director of Applied Technology Training of Siemens. Dr. Robert Templin, President of CIT, opened the conference with his entertaining and provocative comments on technology and future workforce issues.

A unique feature of the conference was the presentation of special projects that were developed through the afternoon break out sessions of last year’s conference. Volunteers from the 2nd annual conference coordinated workforce preparation projects in their communities and presented an overview of the results during the morning session of the conference. The Jobs of Tomorrow – Employers Speak Out forum was one of the four special projects and is described in an article elsewhere in this newsletter. The other projects were apprenticeship/shadowing, welfare reform and WorkKeys.

Robert Ranson, president-elect of the Greater Richmond Technology Council, also made a presentation during this session, and Mac MacIlroy of the Virginia Manufacturers Association provided the luncheon address. Following his remarks, attendees participated in break out sessions that were facilitated by the special project volunteers. Each of the special projects were described in detail so that the conference attendees could use the projects as models to recreate these programs within their own communities, schools and businesses.

Two companies recently moved operations into the Arboretum IX building in the Arboretum Office Park. Morven Partners has relocated their headquarters from Dallas, Texas to Chesterfield. This new location will be home to more than 30 of the company’s executives and support staff. Morven Partners L.P., trading as Original Nut House Brands, is a privately owned partnership and the largest producer of inshell roasted and salted peanuts and granulated peanuts in the world. Morven has over fourteen hundred employees operating in 27 locations across the United States.

IBM Corporation has relocated its regional offices from downtown Richmond with approximately 180 IBM employees operating out of the new facility in Chesterfield.

Economic Development staff participates in trade shows of selected industries as part of its marketing efforts to attract new investment and jobs into the county. Recently, the staff attended shows in the food technology, medical and microelectronics industries and returned with many leads.

The Semicon West 97 show and conference was especially fruitful. Governor George Allen hosted a luncheon for key semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers at the show in San Francisco/San Jose. The Richmond area continues to receive recognition as the heart of the new “Silicon Dominion”. The number of suppliers that have indicated intentions to locate here to serve the chip manufacturing companies is rapidly expanding. Chesterfield County’s geographical location and infrastructure makes it an ideal spot to serve all the various industries in Central Virginia.

Please let the staff know of any industry-specific shows which may generate strong investment leads for the county, i.e. suppliers,
technology, etc.

Millwood School, a private K-8 school, is building a new facility in the Woodlake/360 area. The school is currently located on Genito Road in the Brandermill area. Millwood purchased 57 acres for their new campus which will include a 20,000 square foot facility. The new school should be ready for the 1998-99 school year.

The Richmond area’s small manufacturers have a new source for informed and objective assistance. The A.L. Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership (VPMEP) has opened a field office, located at 10001 Iron Bridge Road (Signet Bank building) in Chesterfield County, to serve metropolitan Richmond. A team of three project managers is available to provide a wide range of services to small manufacturers.

Manufacturing extension
project managers bring extensive industry experience to the VPMEP. Many are former plant managers and have backgrounds in industrial engineering.

VPMEP is Virginia’s link in a growing national chain of manufacturing extension centers. The Richmond office is the seventh field office developed from the headquarters in Martinsville, Virginia. All of the field offices have the same mission – helping small manufacturers become more competitive.

For more information on the services available at the Richmond metropolitan VPMEP, contact Paul Zirkle at 706-1801 or 1802.

Sealeze Corporation of Chesterfield was recently recognized by Richmond Goodwill Industries for using its contract services. Goodwill workers packaged the weatherstripping supplies that Sealeze used for sales demonstrations and presentations.

In the past three years, more than 11,594 new jobs have been added to the employment base.

A growing number of new businesses have been established. There were 450 more firms and establishments located in the county in 1996 than in 1993.

Since January 1994, a total of more than $337.41 million of new investment in commercial and industrial projects has been announced.

Those announcements included more than 3,051 new jobs and more than 2.8 million square feet of new commercial and industrial space.

Also since 1994, more than $144.5 million of new commercial and industrial real estate has been added to Chesterfield’s tax base.