Driving Our Economy Forward: Nokian Tyre Expansion
DAYTON, Tenn. (WDEF) –Recently Nokian Tyres dedicated at 350,000 square foot warehouse in Rhea County Tennessee. The warehouse can hold hundreds of thousands of tires. The Dayton Factory has even grown its team to 500 employees. Tonight, we take a look at and see how Nokian Tyres continues to drive our economy forward.
“Thank you guys for coming today. It is a special day in the life of Nokian Tyres as we’re here today to celebrate two things. First we’re dedicating this beautiful space a warehouse that can hold hundreds of thousands of tires to serve our customers in the US and Canada. But second more of a symbolic celebration this is the culmination of
the 5-year ramp up process of our North American Factory here in Dayton Tennessee,” says Nokian Tyres Communications and Marketing Manager Wes Boling.
“Through this process we’ve gone we have invested $500 million here in Rhea County that’s a big deal. And even more importantly from that we’ve taken that launch team of 60 people and grown it to over 500. Now that is a really big deal,” says Operations Director David Korda.
“Nokian and tires offered us a uh class uh through Chattanooga State the opportunities that Nokian and tires gives us they’re they’re very beneficial. We’re able to to get in here and learn Nokian Tyres wants us to be the best that we can. So they offer these classes for us. Um and without it we we wouldn’t have that growth and development,” says Jonathan Hall, Nokian Tyres Warehouse Team Lead.
“With growth a good thing is we’re going to be adding jobs. I anticipate between now and the first quarter of next year we could add anywhere between 12 to 15 new jobs,” says Warehouse Manager, Kieth Wilkerson.
“The revenue that it creates through capital investment. The jobs that it furnishes Rhea County their pay scale, uh it’s all a piece of our growth. Uh it adds credibility to our Industrial Park. Uh very impressive plant uh we are so blessed to have them here,” says Rhea County Executive, Jim Vincent.
“Last year uh Rhea County had the largest percentage of uh income increase of any county in the state of Tennessee and it’s directly related to Nokian Tyres, the industrial growth and the commitment that the state, the local communities are making in Rhea County,” says Sam Wills, Regional Director of the Tennessee Department of Economics and Community Development.
“Think about that. Five hundred local families in this community that are benefiting from this place. Um we could not have done this alone. Uh so we have all of you to thank,” Korda states.
“This is of course much more than a warehouse. This is impacting individual lives through the hiring of new team members and through the equipping of existing team members with new skills. And giving them some automation to make their jobs that much more straightforward and and allowing them to diversify uh their training. This is also big for our customers of course. As David mentioned half of the nation’s population lives within a day’s drive of Dayton Tennessee. It’s part of why we chose this space. And now we’re able to ship those tires to our nine distribution warehouses from Quebec and Maine all the way out to California uh and western Canada; able to get those tires out there but eventually even directly to our customers. which is going to make that delivery uh timeline much much simpler and strengthen our business,” says Boling.
