
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994                   TAG: 9412050030
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                 LENGTH: Short

VOLVO GM GETS ITS 1ST MILLION

Gov. George Allen made the first of five annual $1 million payments to Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp. on Friday as the state's contribution toward a $200 million expansion now under way.

The money from the Governor's Opportunity Fund is part of an incentive package that helped persuade Volvo GM to expand at its existing Pulaski County plant instead of moving to the Carolinas.

The expansion, which will include a new cab-assembly plant and high-volume paint facility, is 22 percent complete. Major foundations for both buildings are finished and underground utilities installed.

"Believe me, we were in a great deal of competition on this matter. It wasn't as if this was the only site they were looking at," Allen said. He identified the competition as "generally the Carolinas, and they were offering incentives and inducements which were far in excess of what we could ever hope to pull off in Virginia."

Allen credited the work force at the truck manufacturing plant, which now numbers about 1,500, as being perhaps more of a factor than the incentive package in keeping Volvo GM in Virginia. "What I think really made the difference was the work ethic and the attitude of the people who work here," he said.

But Frank Adams, executive vice president of industrial operations, said the incentive package "played a decisive role in our commitment to invest in these facilities." He said 250 to 300 new jobs will be added when the expanded facilities go into production in late 1996.

Adams said the plant has seen record production for two years in a row, "and we've already planned another record for 1995."

by CNB