Great Lakes Cheese officials at ground breaking event tout Texas-style welcome to Abilene
A banner welcome for Great Lakes Cheese, including breaking ground at its future site Wednesday, was “overwhelming,” said Dan Zagzebski, president and chief executive officer of the company.
“(We’re) really a company that just kind of sits in the background and does what we hope is right,” Zagzebski said. “And in this situation, where we have an audience, so to speak, it’s something that we’re not used to.”
But Zagzebski told those gathered at the site of the company’s 280,000-square-foot plant that when he came to town in October, it was its “Texas hospitality” and enthusiasm that made the difference.
Particularly hopeful, he said, was seeing city officials, state leaders, local businesses, educators and others who “all want to work together.”
“Let me tell you, that doesn’t happen, usually,” Zagzebski said. “Usually, they want to keep you away because of employment or whatever the case is. We were welcomed, I saws something new here. … That was actually the turning point for me, personally. ”
The DCOA offered $33.3 million in incentives to bring the $184.5 million packaging and distribution plant to town, the largest project in the entity’s 30-year history.
The plant will, starting early next year, support the company’s southern retail food service and industrial business and strengthen its overall footprint, Zagzebski said.
It is the company’s third project in the past five years, Great Lakes preferring to move quickly in response to demand, he said.
Zagzebski said he found Abilene a place that meshes well with Great Lakes’ core corporate culture of “hard work, honestly and integrity.”
And he said that the family- and employee-owned company planned to be here for a very long time.
“We focus on generation to generation, not quarter to quarter,” he said. “Today is just the beginning for us to continue that generational mindset.”
Getting to work
El Khattary, vice president of sales and marketing for Great Lakes Cheese, said work on the project already had started, though Mayor Anthony Williams and others took up shovels and ceremonially put spades to earth.
“When we do something, we do it and we don’t waste any time,” he said.
Abilene City Councilman Kyle McAlister (left) and Mayor Anthony Williams joke with Dan Zagzebski, president and CEO of Great Lakes Cheese Co., prior to the groundbreaking ceremony on the company’s new factory Wednesday.
More:Abilene, Gov. Abbott announce Great Lakes Cheese Co. bringing 510 jobs to city
Matt Wilkinson, vice president of technology and business development, said after the ceremony that plans moving forward will be swift.
“Generally, we look at around a 15-month timetable,” he said. “We’ll be looking to have the building itself complete in (the third quarter) of next year.”
Equipment installation the 76-acre site, located at State Highway 36 and FM 18, will happen next, and “we would be already looking at running productive material, commercial product, out of here by (fourth quarter) of next year,” he said.
Hiring should begin in some areas “within the next few months,” he said. That will be for key positions such as human resources, with a heavier recruitment effort in the months before the plant starts up.
Heidi Eller, the chair of the board for Great Lakes Cheese Co. and a second-generation member of the family that founded the company, spoke during Wednesday’s ground-breaking event.
In choosing Abilene, a combination of community enthusiasm, physical location, available labor force and support from city and state officials won the day, Wilkinson said.
“What they had to say, the story they had to tell us about the city itself very much jived with the culture of our company,” he said. “When we combined all of these things, it just felt like a complete, rounded package.”
The Abilene location will be the business’ ninth.
Wilkinson indicated that coming to Texas was a “pretty big decision.”
“We’re predominantly out of Wisconsin and New York,” he told those gathered, with other locations in Ohio, Tennessee and Utah.
The company sent a one-line email in August to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, Wilkinson said, indicating it was considering locating in Texas.
Dignitaries from Great Lakes Cheese Co. and Abilene Mayor Anthony Williams (center) ceremonially break ground.
Not long after, more than 40 sites expressed interest, many “ready to go,” he said.
Locations quickly were drilled down, Abilene rising to the top out of several hopefuls, including Wichita Falls.
Great Lakes was not looking for just “profits at any cost,” but to be of benefit to the community where it located, Wilkinson said.
He praised the DCOA, the mayor’s office, city officials and other leaders, including the governor’s office, for a high level of engagement.
“We started to feel very culturally aligned with Abilene,” he said, the company also impressed the state is run “more like a business” than government.
“Texas is open for business, especially in comparison to some of the other locations out there,” he said. “… Abilene is also, and we’re super happy to be part of what’s going on down here.”
Williams, repeating a common message, said the more than 500 jobs brought to the community would confer “dignity and worth,” a chance to “give more of our citizens in this community an opportunity to take care of their families.”
“This community is not good enough for any of us unless it’s good enough for all of us,” he said, adding that “we need more opportunities like this” to make that vision real.
Dream team
Williams gave particular praise to DCOA president and CEO Misty Mayo, saying that without her, “we are not here today.”
Misty Mayo, Development Corporation of Abilene
Mayo said it takes a broad team of players to meet such goals, calling the groundbreaking the “most privileged and honored day in my professional career.”
The community’s commitment to economic development, including allocating a portion of sales tax dollars to such endeavors, is key in recruiting and retaining companies, she said.
“GLC is the future of Abilene,” Mayo said.
Adriana Cruz, executive director of economic development and tourism with Abbott’s office, called the plant a “remarkable win not only for the city of Abilene and for the region, but for the entire state.”
“In Texas, economic development is a team sport,” she said, later reading a proclamation from Abbott lauding Great Lakes’ decision.
Living Legacy
Gov. Greg Abbott wears a cheese head hat, as promised, in celebration of Great Lakes Cheese Co. coming to Abilene.
Known as Project Legacy in its nascent stages, the Great Lakes Cheese Co. agreement was revealed in mid-April at a joint meeting of the Abilene City Council and the DCOA.
More:Abilene DCOA looking at ‘Project Legacy,’ which could bring hundreds of new jobs
Abbott, state Sen. Dawn Buckingham and state Rep. Stan Lambert attended that gathering via live video feed, the governor celebrating the project earning a $3 million Texas Enterprise fund grant.
The DCOA’s offer is composed of $30 million in grants and $3.33 million in “in-kind” incentives, including land and improvements needed to make the site ready.
According to an economic impact study by the University of Texas at San Antonio, for every dollar the DCOA invests, Great Lakes Cheese Co. will invest $12 back into the community in the form of capital investment, property tax, school tax, sales tax and wages.
Great Lakes Cheese, which now distributes products coast-to-coast, was founded in 1958 and serves retailers and food service operations as a manufacturer and packer of natural and process bulk, shredded and sliced cheeses.
The company is expected to have a direct and indirect impact over 10 years of $1.3 billion.
