Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070112
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
James River Limestone Co. Inc. on Tuesday dedicated a new $1 million-plus bagging facility to Clifford Wells.
Wells, the company's founder, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, said recently that he was considering selling his share of the company.
The new operation, which bags the company's consumer limestone products for lawn and garden use, is located west of Virginia 43 in Buchanan and near packaging plants for other company products.
Wells, who appeared surprised by the honor, said he believes James River now is the second-largest producer of consumer limestone products in the United States, trailing only Georgia Marble Co. The company delivers its products along the East Coast and west to St. Louis. It has sales of roughly $16 million a year.
The company sells other types of products, including packaged lava stone from New Mexico and landscaping pebbles from South Carolina. It also markets bulk stone products. The company's limestone is found in such diverse products as carpets, roofing shingles and glass. Gaskets used in NASA's moon rockets may have contained the company's limestone, Wells said.
State Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, called James River Limestone a "quiet giant" of the marketplace. Virginians are proud of companies like James River, he said, that have risen from the entrepreneurial stage to grow into industry leaders that employ the latest technology.
After it's brought up to full operation, the new packaging facility will fill shipping pallets with 50-pound bags of limestone at the rate of 60 every 90 seconds. The pallets automatically are wrapped with plastic .
Seven tall silo-shaped hoppers rise above the 12,000-square-foot packaging building's roof. Each holds a different limestone product. Bag-loading machinery inside the building moves on a track underneath the hoppers in order to receive their contents.
Wells started James River Limestone in 1968 when he bought a Buchanan plant from his former employer, the James River Hydrate and Supply Co., which had operated near Buchanan since the 1930s. His company now operates 10 plants at seven locations: two in Pennsylvania, one each in South Carolina and West Virginia and four in Virginia.
James River employs 160, with employees owning 41 percent of the company through a stock ownership plan.
by CNB