Folsom Welcomes Steel Giant to Alabama

Press Release

I was proud to represent you yesterday as we welcomed the world's second largest steel maker to Alabama. This was great news at a time when our people are hurting and our economy needs a boost. The people are speaking loud and clear in poll after poll that the economy and bringing jobs to Alabama are most important to them.

I want you to know that I hear you!

I hope you enjoy this article from the Birmingham News about POSCO's 19 million dollar investment in Alabama. Since 1994, the vision you and I shared about opening Alabama to the automotive manufacturing industry has resulted in over 153, 000 jobs and pumped 7 Billion Dollars into our economy! Let's keep working together -- we can't afford not to.

Korean steel giant Posco opens cutting plant at McCalla to serve automakers

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Michael Tomberlin, Birmingham News

Alabama Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. said praise for Alabama by Korean executive as center of U.S. automaking industry shows how far state has come since arrival of Mercedes at Vance.

The Alabama operations for Korean steel giant Posco officially opened its automotive steel cutting plant in McCalla today in what a senior executive dubbed "the center of the automotive industry in the U.S."

Posco-AAPC, as the Alabama plant is known, will bring in large rolls of steel by rail and truck and cut them into parts for automakers in the Southeast. The company's grand opening ceremonies did not specify which automakers the plant would supply, but the presence at the ribbon cutting of VIPs from Hyundai, BMW and Volkswagen provided an obvious clue.

Posco has invested $19 million in the plant and, with the help of Jefferson County, Gray Construction and the Jefferson County Economic Development and Industrial Development Authority, completed an aggressive construction schedule in just over nine months.

The plant is located in Jefferson Metropolitan Park-McCalla, which the authority controls.

Posco handed out awards to those who helped make the plant possible, including an award to Jefferson County, which Commission President Bettye Fine-Collins accepted.

Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. accepted the award on behalf of the state. He apologized that Gov. Bob Riley was unable to be at the event because of a prior commitment.

But Folsom said he did like hearing Alabama called the "center of the automotive industry in the U.S."

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