New Company Brings Jobs To Rhea County

     Some good economic news comes out of Rhea County.
     Officials celebrated the grand opening of the new General Shale Brick company.
     When it's fully expanded, it will provide over 90 jobs.
     WDEF News 12's Mandy Odom shows us more as we cover the economy.
     Company President Richard Green says, "We know that the state of Tennessee has the best employees in the world."
     In a time when it's hard to find a job, a new company opens in Spring City.
     General Shale Brick welcomed visitors for the grand opening Wednesday, an event years in the making.
     Company officials started planning a new factory in 2005, and Rhea County started courting them.
     Rhea County Economic & Tourism Councilman Raymond Walker says, "We have the big plus of having a rail road, the biggest rail road between the north and south go all the way through the county. We have a 4 lane highway that lacks two miles of being complete from Chattanooga to Knoxville, and we have the Tennessee River running parallel to Rhea County."
     General Shale President Richard Green says Spring City's geography and proximity to other cities helped with their decision to build there.
     Plus a 2.2 million dollar access road and a government grant funded a railroad spur.
     Green says they wanted a community who wanted them and despite the decline in the housing market, he hopes for the best.
     He says, "We believe in the long term future of our company. We believe that we have to make investments for the future, and that's what we did here and will continue to do."
     Jimmy Lane is one of the thankful local people hired at General Shale.
     He'd been laid off.
     He says, "It was a God send really. I mean, there was nobody hiring anywhere. Then all of a sudden we start building a new company, and they're hiring 30-40 people bringing them in, and most of them were laid off employees from other places close by. So, it really helped the town a whole lot."
     General Shale hopes to hire more people next year and expand to full production, making 2 million bricks a week.
     In Rhea County, Mandy Odom, WDEF News 12.
     Rhea County officials say they'll have 7 more lots available for industries after General Shale harvests the clay from the leased county land.
     General Shale will pay the county 25-cents a ton for the clay.