U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was driving the bus in more than ways than one during a site visit to the GreenPower Motor Company in South Charleston, one day before National Manufacturing Day.
Capito, R-W.Va., took the wheel of the Beast, a model of electric school bus manufactured at the South Charleston plant.
“I can tell you I’ve always wondered how people drive large trucks or school buses and fire engines, and honestly, it was the smoothest driving thing I’ve ever seen,” Capito said after driving the bus and delivering its passengers safely back to the GreenPower plant. “It was very impressive. It’s nice to know it’s being built here too.”
The keys to this bus were handed to officials with Wyoming County Schools, who had already been testing GreenPower’s smaller bus, the NanoBeast, on routes near Pineville. School officials reported no issues with the bus, where it is picking up students in one of the more rural and mountainous parts of the state.
GreenPower manufactures the NanoBeast, the Beast, and MegaBeast at its facility along I-64. The NanoBeast has a range of 140 miles and seating for 24. The Beast can seat up to 90 passengers with a similar range, including better storage capabilities. The MegaBeast doubles the range of the Beast and NanoBeast at 300 miles, with better uphill climbing power and the ability to generate electricity back into the power grid.
These electric buses have the potential to save school systems hundreds of thousands of dollars on diesel costs and can be quickly recharged to full in around three hours. And these buses meet and/or exceed safety standards for standard combustion engine school buses.
“They’re new, and when things are new, people question,” said Mark Nestlen, the vice president of business development and strategy for GreenPower. “School buses are already safe, but what these go through are of a greater degree (of testing) as well.”
Canada-based GreenPower first announced their new school bus manufacturing plant for South Charleston at the beginning of 2022, setting up shop in the South Charleston Industrial Park. The plant has around 80 employees and is working with nearby BridgeValley Community and Technical College, which recently graduated a class of 20 workers for the plant, with another class of between 40 and 60 workers slated to start classes soon.
Nestlen said the plant’s goal is to get to 200 workers and start a second shift to meet the national demand for places like New York, where school buses must be all-electric by 2035.
“We need to be at 200 people for the production we’re doing,” Nestlen said. “Right now, we’re still only running one shift. We need to have a second shift…I want our employees out here on the floor to know that their kids are riding on those buses. It creates a sense of pride in the work they do. But this building isn’t for supplying West Virginia; it’s for the East Coast.”
GreenPower is one company taking advantage of incentives in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, negotiated in part in 2021 by Capito and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. And much of the work on electric vehicle infrastructure is being done by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, where Capito is the ranking Republican member.
With Manchin retiring at the end of the year, Capito will become the state’s senior senator. And with the November elections determining which party holds the majority in Congress, Capito could also become the chairwoman of Environment and Public Works, giving her more ability to steer towards the kinds of infrastructure projects that can benefit the manufacturing sector in West Virginia and nationally.
“I think what we’ve realized over the last couple of years or decades is that a lot of our manufacturing and our manufacturing inputs were being imported from countries that maybe are not as reliable, as in China and others,” Capito said. “We want to have our American manufacturing. So, we’re bringing things home and we’re bringing it home to West Virginia.”
BUILD IT UP
According to the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Campaign for Jobs 2024 Digest, West Virginia ranked fifth in the nation for wages per hour of production workers in manufacturing, with West Virginia’s wages per hour in 2021 being $30.21. West Virginia also ranked 14th in productivity for production workers in manufacturing, at $191.52 in value added per hour.
In West Virginia, the annual average investment per employee in manufacturing in 2021 was $17,966, with machinery and equipment expenditures coming in more than $786 million. West Virginia had a 1.4% growth rate between October 2022 and October 2023, ranked at 33 and adding 9,700 jobs.
West Virginia also moved up CNBC’s Best States for Business Rankings, from 46th in 2023 to 40th in 2024, ranking third for cost of business, first for cost of living, and 17th for business friendliness. According to the state Department of Economic Development, more than $20 billion has been invested in the state by businesses since Gov. Jim Justice took office in 2017. In the month of August alone, three companies announced economic development projects worth a combined $219 million in investment in the state.
Bill Bissett is more than nine months into his tenure as president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association. With experience as the leader of the Kentucky Coal Association, the Huntington Chamber of Commerce, and senior advisor to Capito on economic development, Bissett said he has already learned much from the more than 200 existing and new manufacturers that make up the trade association.
“Because of the luxuries that we have in the 21st century, we detach ourselves from the means of production. We don’t know where our milk comes from, we don’t know where our clothing comes from,” Bissett said in an interview Thursday. “But at the end of the day, all these things that make modern life so wonderful require ingenuity, investment, risk, talent, effort, and I think we forget that a lot.
“Being able to tell that story of how all these wonderful things in our lives not only combine for manufacturing – which involves everything from natural resources to the chemical industry to energy production to all these factors to finally getting an iPhone – Is really fascinating to me,” Bissett continued. “They have my respect. That’s why I like telling their story, and it’s been a real learning curve, because it is such a diverse membership.”
National Manufacturing Day occurs on the first Friday in October every year. Over the last several years, the importance of National Manufacturing Day has taken on new meaning in a state once known for its major manufacturing. But areas of the state that have been decimated by the closures of large businesses and industries are seeing a comeback.
Battery manufacturer Form Energy is breathing new life into the site for the former Weirton Steel. Nucor is making progress on its new steel electric smelter in Mason County. The former Century Aluminum site near Ravenswood will be the future home of the BHE Renewables and Precision Castparts Corp. (TIMET Inc.) solar-powered titanium melt facility.
Bissett pointed to the creation of the Department of Economic Development; funding for economic development incentive packages; changes in the tax, legal, and regulatory structure of the state; and the implementation of right to work in 2016 as positive steps that finally put the state on the map for site selection teams. Bissett also credited the state’s congressional delegation and President Joe Biden for directing more federal funding to the state.
“I think with the passage of right to work, I think with a development office and the governor’s administration that truly hustles, with a congressional delegation, and…you’ve got to look to the Biden administration and what they’ve done – It’s a confluence of factors, because it’s never one thing that usually makes those things happen,” Bissett said.
The Workplace Freedom Act, which made West Virginia one of 27 Right to Work states, allows employees who work in a union shop to opt out of having dues and fees taken from their paychecks and paid to unions in future union contracts.
“What I hear from site selection people and from companies is you weren’t even on the radar until you passed right to work,” Bissett continued. “That’s when…that uptick really hit. Now, we still have to close the deals, but at least we are at the table.”
West Virginia ranked 18th for the percentage of private sector union membership on 2022 with 6.7%. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, private sector and public sector union membership was 9.2% of those employed in West Virginia in 2022, dropping slightly to 8.7% in 2023.
“A lot of these new companies and this new infrastructure is going to be built by union labor,” Bissett said. “I think the unions have finally woken up and realized that economic development is in their best interest. And seeing a state that’s on the uptick is good for their members and their organizations.”
But despite the growth in economic development over the last several years, finding the workers needed for these companies in West Virginia remains a struggle. West Virginia is ranked 49th for workforce participation, the percentage of residents either working or looking for work. Bissett said there needs to be an education component to identifying potential workers and telling them about the benefits of these high-paying jobs.
“We just need to do a better job explaining gainful employment and the benefits,” Bissett said. “It’s not just the paycheck. It’s how you see yourself. It’s how other people see you. It’s health benefits.”
Both Bissett and Capito said a greater focus needs to be funneling West Virginia students into job training, apprenticeships and community and technical college education.
“What we need to do is really go to our high schools and our junior high schools and our middle schools and say, ‘these are careers for the future, these are careers for families, and join the new economy,'” Capito said.
“I can tell you a lot of people are working on it,” Bissett said. “Post-secondary institutions are very focused upon it because that’s the feedstock for their future…We are extremely focused on that issue.”