Galesburg City Council is granting $200,000 to Midstate Manufacturing aiding in their expansion efforts which are planned for the next two years.
Alderman voted 4-0 for the funding at last night’s meeting.
Ken Springer President of the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development says Midstate is beginning to manufacture components of kits that are retrofitted to make off-highway trucks self-driving.
“The Knox County Area Partnership feels that this incentive is warranted,” Springer said to Aldermen. “We think that the value of incentives is appropriate given the scope of the expansion of the company.”
They are laying out plans to do major renovations to two buildings they have purchased, purchase new equipment and will start assembling autonomous vehicle kits for off-highway trucks.
Alderman Wayne Allen rushed to be the first to congratulate and thank company officials for bringing more jobs to town.
He says this is a project that’s been a long time coming. “A lot of hard work by a lot of hard people, but Midstates [is] a unique company. They don’t sit and cry about not having business. They go out and find it and this is one of the things they went out and found.”
Midstate Plant Manager Shawn Pitman says the jobs created will be “pretty widespread”, but essentially consists of skilled trade jobs like welders, fabricators, from the entry to high levels.
Pitman says parts of these kits were being made all over the globe, and Midstate decided to start fabricating the parts they could, which he says pulls jobs back into the U.S. and local economy.
Pitman thanked aldermen, city administration, Springer and more broadly, the Midstate employees and people of Galesburg.
He indicated his eagerness to assist in certain projects in the future, like when Midstate spearheaded the moving and renovating the amphibious military vehicle that now sits at the Lincoln Park Veteran’s Memorial.
Mayor John Pritchard has he toured the new facilities and he’s encouraged that such large under-utilized buildings will be “put to good use”, not to mention the expansion of job opportunities in Galesburg.
