CANON UNVEILS NEW U.S. PLANT / TO HIRE 1,000 EMPLOYEES

[Anonymous]

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/04/canon-unveil-newport-news-plant-1000-jobs-planned
Canon to unveil Newport News plant, 1,000 jobs planned
Canon
Virginia Inc. today will show off a new $640 million
cartridge-manufacturing facility in Newport News that will bring 1,000
jobs to the region by 2013.Canon plans a 4 p.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony
at the plant in Oyster Point. Scheduled guests include Gov. Timothy M.
Kaine and national Canon executives.The 700,000-square-foot building is
finished but will not start operations until the end of the year or
early 2010, Rhonda Bunn, a spokeswoman for Canon Virginia, said
Thursday. Equipment will be installed from May to October and then
tested for several weeks, she said.

Canon, she said, promised to
hire 1,000 workers for the facility by 2013. It already has hired 250.
Canon has been in Newport News for 23 years and employed about 1,500
people before the expansion.The printing company chose Newport News for
the expansion because “Canon wants to build products in the region near
the consumer,” Bunn said.She noted that the company already had 165
acres in Newport News. The area also was attractive, Bunn said, because
of its proximity to highways, airports and ports, and its potential
work force.The laser-cartridge facility is the largest piece of Canon
Virginia’s expansion, one of the state’s biggest economic-development
coups in recent years. Other facets include:

– Expansion of
its repair facility for digital products, primarily cameras and
printers. That occurred about a year ago, Bunn said.

– Expansion of its site in Gloucester that recycles toner cartridges. That was finished in January, she said.

– Creation of a research and development facility for robotic technology. That, Bunn said, is still being planned.

[Author]

May 1, 2009 at 3:18 PM