Teledyne tax cut will lead to more jobs

By Karen Hall

Staff Writer

A Lewisburg company will be financing a planned expansion of its operations with a PILOT grant authorized by the city council this week.

Teledyne Electronic Manufacturing Services will be buying $3.7 million worth of new equipment, and may be spending as much as $800,000 on a 25,000 square foot addition to their existing facility.

This will lead to the hiring of 96 new full-time employees by the end of 2017.

The Payment In Lieu Of Taxes agreement, for a total of $4.5 million, is for six years.

"I would ask you to approve this PILOT for the expansion of one of our industries," Director of Economic Development Greg Lowe said to councilmen Tuesday.

Councilmen voted unanimously to approve the PILOT, and Mayor Barbara Woods said, "We're excited to have you coming to be a part of our community."

Teledyne EMS of Lewisburg has been a leader in electronics manufacturing for the defense and aerospace industries for more than 30 years. When the opportunity came to compete with other sister facilities for a new micro-electronics product line out of California, officials at the Lewisburg facility began working with Lewisburg and State of Tennessee Economic Development officials to help them demonstrate why moving the operations to Middle Tennessee was the right choice.

'ÄúThe State of Tennessee made a very good presence at the meetings and provided a lot of background on what the state can bring to the project,'Äù said Shane Green, vice president and general manager of Teledyne EMS of Lewisburg.

Working with the state and regional economic development partners, the City of Lewisburg put together incentive and relocation packages to help bring not only the new expansion and jobs, but people from the California facility.

'ÄúWe wanted to show that it made good business sense to relocate the product line in Lewisburg and that Lewisburg and the entire Middle Tennessee region provide a great location for some of its highly-skilled workforce to relocate as well,'Äù said Lowe.

The new product line involves micro-electronics manufacturing that has been in operation on the West Coast for the past 50 years. This high-tech manufacturing operation demands a highly-skilled workforce of engineers and those with the ability to obtain and retain security clearances from the Department of Defense. Training of existing workers and new hires will be essential to the success of the project, as well as recruiting of other highly-skilled employees from the West Coast.

'ÄúThe exciting part about it is that it contains a whole range of new technologies that we don'Äôt currently perform here,'Äù said Green. 'ÄúThis will allow us to provide a broader range of products and services to the customer base. We feel like this is going to be a strong competitive position for us and enable growth of the business over time.'Äù

The expansion will create 60-70 new jobs at the Lewisburg facility around the middle of next year and is projected to create 96 new jobs total over the next five years. The positions will be all high-tech manufacturing positions from engineers and support services to operators, technicians, and production.

'ÄúTo our knowledge, we will be unique in the area with hybrid manufacturing, chip and wire technology, and chip integration technology,'Äù said Green.

The company hopes to begin hiring for the expansion project by the summer of 2013.