Foxconn Official Salutes Valley Workforce, Regional Chamber

NILES, Ohio – One of the reasons Foxconn decided to locate in Ohio was the workforce, its chief of staff to the vice president said.

“It’s something that attracted the company to the state of Ohio,” Robert Schlaeger said Thursday morning at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber’s Salute to Business event at the Eastwood Event Centre.

More than 400 people work at the Lordstown plant.

“As it pertains to electric vehicles, our chairman believes in a business model called CDMS, otherwise known as Contract, Design, Manufacture and Services,” Schlaeger said. “This is the way that Foxconn can be your best bulk manufacturer to produce an electric vehicle.”

Foxconn can also work with a customer, whether a startup or an original equipment manufacturer, to bring a product to market by working with them through design services and the manufacturing process.

In the information and communication technology industry in the 1990s, the prices of personal computers dropped and margins declined.

“That then brought on the advent of contract manufacturing with price pressures,” Schlaeger said. “With the direction that electric vehicle is going, Foxconn’s value add is that it can be a contract manufacturer under the CDMS business model to give that option and solution for startups, joint ventures or OEMs who want their electric vehicles to be brought to market under their brand.”

Other reasons Foxconn opted to locate a facility in Ohio include its centralized geography within the North American supply chair and its rich history of automobile manufacturing, its proximity to the company’s Wisconsin campus where 1,000 employees make data servers, the state’s business friendly climate and educational institutions, including Youngstown State University.

The Monarch MK-V tractor is in production at the Lordstown facility. It’s an autonomous tractor with swappable batteries “that can reduce the environmental cost of bringing food from the farm to our tables while at the same time supporting sometimes 24-hour demand for our farmers to reap their fields,” Schlaeger explained.

He also commended Guy Coviello, Regional Chamber president and CEO.

“It’s clear the region is a better place because of the efforts of your leadership, your team, to harness the spirit of the Valley and to salute others,” Schlaeger said. 

Schlaeger was introduced at the event by Alexa Sweeney Blackann, the interim CEO of Lake to River Economic Development, the new JobsOhio district that includes Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties.

District representatives meet regularly with elected officials and community leaders and speak daily with business owners throughout the four counties to address company challenges and opportunities, she said.

Blackann described Lake to River as “an economic agency that does the work.”

This year, the region has seen more than $42 million of capital investment in real estate and the purchase of machinery and equipment.

The region is experiencing economic growth and job creation with industry investments being made by companies of all sizes, Blackann said.

Salute to Business Awards

The Chamber event, for which WFMJ anchor Lindsay McCoy served as emcee, drew more than 500 attendees – the most since 2007.

The chamber recognized Brookfield native Sarah O’Brien with the Valley Champion Award. She’s a pastry chef and James Beard Award semifinalist who owns a chain of Little Tart Bakeshop locations in Atlanta. 

Other award recipients are:

• Business Professional of the Year: Greg Toporcer, owner of Top Property Holdings.
• Business Advocate of the Year: Kristen Olmi, chief executive officer of KO Consulting Inc.
• Non-Profit Professional of the Year: Dionne Dowdy, executive director of United Returning Citizens.
• Entrepreneur of the Year: Ronnell Elkins, president of YoGo Bikeshare.
• Small Business Professional of the Year: Melissa Poland, owner of Sweet Melissa’s Good Eats.
• Salute to Labor Achievement Award: Antonio Di Tommaso Jr. of Carpenters Local 171.

Coviello said entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the Mahoning Valley, not just through inventing but reinventing too. 

“We are very soon co-hosting a trade delegation from Vietnam,” he said. “Twenty-three Vietnamese companies canceled a trip to Texas and will spend four days here, creating opportunities for chamber members to explore goods and services and expand their supply chain options.”

The delegation will be visiting the Valley through a partnership among the chamber, YSU and Lake to River.

The chamber is also working with Eastgate Regional Council of Governments on a repopulation initiative. In October, they’ll announce strategies to get more working-age people off the sidelines and into employment, the chamber president said.

He also referred to a recent news article that reported Youngstown is ranked seventh in the country for the highest projected increase in apartment units built between 2024 and 2028.

“We are the seventh fastest growing region in new apartment units to handle our growing workforce, to handle our growing economy,” Coviello said.

Pictured at top: Robert Schlaeger, chief of staff to the vice president of Foxconn Technology Group, was the keynote speaker at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber’s Salute to Business event Thursday.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.