By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com
The Economic Development Corp. of Clark County is giving SGL Carbon more time.
More time to add the jobs promised in 2020, when the company received local tax incentives to expand its operation at the Clark County Industrial Park in Gum Springs.
Headquartered in Germany, SGL Carbon manufactures carbon fiber-based composites used in the automotive and aerospace industry. The Gum Springs plant, in operation since 1996, is one of the company’s 29 sites worldwide.
“SGL is known around the world as a leader in the type of products they produce, and we are fortunate to have them as an industrial partner in our county,” said Shelley Short, CEO of the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance.
In January 2020, SGL announced it had been awarded a contract to produce composite battery enclosures for an unnamed North American automaker. Poised then for growth, the company inked an agreement that November with the EDCCC to create additional jobs as it ramped up production of carbon composites mainly used in electric vehicles.
SGL employed 19 people at the time it received the incentives package, valued at $333,750. SGL’s end of the bargain was to bring their workforce to 45 total employees within three years. Fast-forward to 2024, and the company has added nine positions, bringing its total workforce to 28 employees.
SGL Carbon reportedly cited the pandemic and supply chain delays as reasons for the company’s inability to fulfill its obligations to the EDCCC. The EDCCC board discussed the extension for several minutes during a meeting Tuesday before a unanimous decision was made in SGL’s favor. If the extension had not been approved, SGL would have owed the EDCCC $90,375 for the jobs not created.
“The message that I don’t want to send is that we are more worried about getting back our $90,000 than we are about them being successful in our community,” Short told EDCCC board members.
The new agreement expires Dec. 31, 2026.
Asked if noncompliance has been an issue with other companies that have received incentives from the economic development sales tax, EDCCC chair Kevin Jester said the only other business that came to mind was a chicken plant. Jester was referring to Vikon Farms, a Chinese-owned poultry processing company that pledged 172 local jobs when it announced in 2013 it would operate out of the former Petit Jean Poultry plant in the Industrial Park. The Vikon Farms operation, however, never got off the ground.
“They ended up closing,” Jester recounted. “We had some collateral on some equipment, and we were able to sell it and recoup some of our funds.”
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