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DuPont breaks ground on $500M Kevlar plant
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
Gov. Mark Sanford declared DuPont’s new Kevlar fiber plant a life-saver at a groundbreaking event during which a half-dozen dignitaries ceremoniously tossed a bit of loose Berkeley County dirt.
Even as the local, state and company officials donned hard hats and safety goggles while digging their golden shovels into the soil for the standard inaugural photo op, cranes hummed in the background preparing the land for the $500 million facility that will soon be producing a fiber so strong it can stop a bullet.
“We are going to have our groundbreaking as we listen to the pilings being dug in the back,” said Chad Holliday Jr., the chairman and CEO of DuPont, a Wilmington, Del.-based corporation that last year tallied $29.4 billion in revenues. The company employs 60,000 people worldwide and operates in 70 countries.
Initial construction on the plant started in January, even though it wasn’t until April 24 that corporate and political officials gathered on the vast DuPont grounds near Cypress Gardens to praise the company’s investment in Berkeley County.
Rapid demand
Demand for Kevlar is growing so rapidly that DuPont is building its new Cooper River plant on an “accelerated schedule,” said Thomas Powell, vice president and general manager for DuPont Advanced Fiber Systems.
“We are challenging … the team to get this plant up and running right away,” Powell said.
Kevlar is a synthetic fiber five times stronger than steel on a strength-to-weight ratio. It is used to make bulletproof vests and helmets for military and police personnel, and also is heralded as a composite material because of its light weight and extreme durability.
Earlier than projected
The company’s ultimate goal is to have the plant up and running early in 2010, shaving off a few months from the originally projected completion date of late in that year’s first quarter.
“We’ve got a long way to go with construction of the plant, but we think we have the best team available,” Powell said.
The new facility will be located on 27 acres next to DuPont’s existing plant that was constructed in 1973. The site currently employs 60 workers and produces Hytrel thermoplastic polyester elastomer, a soft plastic material that is used primarily by the automotive industry.
Several hundred people came out for the groundbreaking ceremony that was rife with gladhanding and backslapping as officials trumpeted the DuPont outlay that helped push Berkeley County over the $1 billion mark in corporate investments, an achievement announced last year.
“We thank you for how you have blessed this business and expanded it,” said County Councilman Caldwell Pinckney Jr., who delivered the invocation. The plant will employ 100 full-time workers and 400 construction workers through the building process.
Many applications
A number of Kevlar customers and products were on hand to demonstrate the fiber’s myriad uses. Gates Corp., a belt manufacturer with a plant in Moncks Corner, uses Kevlar to strengthen its timing belts that may be placed in anything from a copy machine to a John Deere tractor. Ladson-based Force Protection uses Kevlar fiber in the body frame of its mine-resistant vehicles to protect soldiers against improvised explosive devices.
Also on display were several bulletproof vests and military helmets. Already, Kevlar has saved the lives of several South Carolinians, the governor noted, including that of David Fikes, an Anderson police officer who was shot five times last July while responding to an armed robbery at a bar.
“There are not a lot of jobs where you can say because of my work, someone lived,” Sanford said.
Berkeley County Chairman and Administrator Dan Davis encouraged the crowd to look out across the landscape where the sun was shining down on moss-draped oak trees and thanked DuPont for serving as a good corporate neighbor for the last 35 years.
“If you want to know what the Lowcountry and Charleston is all about, this is what it is,” Davis said.
When it was his turn at the microphone, Holliday aimed his attention at the role of industry in protecting the environment.
“We are in a different world today,” he said, noting the impact of global warming.
“We are keenly aware that you are inviting us into your community, and we are keenly aware that Cypress Gardens is next door,” he said. “We want you to find that industry can work in accordance with the environment.”
Harmonious coexistence
Ellis McGaughy, the plant site manager, said he can recall when DuPont first moved in and “people thought it would be crazy to build a chemical plant next to botanical gardens.”
Turkeys, hogs and gators
But McGaughy said the company has proven that the two can coexist in harmony. Calling it a “sign from the Lord,” McGaughy said he saw the biggest turkey of his lifetime strutting across Cypress Gardens Road the day before the groundbreaking ceremony.
That evening, after all the people cleared, a wild hog darted through the same area where guest speakers took turns lauding the plant.
And later that weekend, the construction crew had a run in with an angry 8-foot alligator that had to be taken back to the wetlands, he said.
DuPont owns in excess of 2,000 acres along the Cooper River at the end of Cypress Gardens Road and adjacent to Cypress Gardens.
A sizeable chunk of that land is undevelopable under a conservation easement.
Still, McGaughy said, there’s plenty of land left for other business ventures by DuPont or others.
“We’ll continue to try to attract businesses to our area. I’m personally trying to entice more DuPont businesses to grow here, but I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to look at anything at this point,” McGaughy said. “This is really just a good place to grow.”
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at mparker@scbiznews.com.
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