By JOE C. EVANS/Starkville Daily News
Ground is being broken today on the new steel mill located near Golden Triangle
Regional Airport.
SeverCorr, formerly known as SteelCorr, will operate the mill, which is expected
to eventually employ about 450 regular employees. These 450 jobs are expected to
have an average salary of $70,000.
The plant was very nearly located in Oceola, Ark., and John Correnti, CEO of the
company, was about to start building at that location when a last minute
complication with that area's power company sent him looking for a new location.
“When I found that TVA had certified ‘Megasites,' I became excited because that
meant that many power issues will have already been resolved,” said Correnti,
who met with area media representatives Wednesday afternoon at Old Waverly Golf
Club in West Point. “This plant will consume between $15 and $18 million an
month in electricity.”
Correnti said that local officials helped him make the final decision.
“Once I got in touch with Joe Higgins, in Columbus about the mill, he just
grabbed hold of the idea and would not let go,” he said.
Correnti said that in addition to favorable power rates and infrastructure, the
Golden Triangle location rated very well in terms of other needs for the plant.
“We wanted to be near a water port, because shipping bulk items like scrap and
finished steel is much cheaper by water than land or air,” said Correnti. “This
location is also central to most of the car factories that are springing up all
over the South. Nissan in Mississippi, Toyota in Texas, Saturn in Tennessee,
Mercedes in Alabama, Honda in North Carolina, BMW in South Carolina and others.
Locating here reduces shipping costs to those places as opposed to somewhere
else. 25 percent of all cars made in the United States are now made in the
South, and that number is growing. Detroit is no longer the place American cars
are made.”
Correnti says that he is excited to get construction underway.
“It took longer than I thought it would to work out all the details,” he said.
“We had hoped to break ground this past June or July. Sadly, our incentive
package from the state government came just after the infamous beef plant issue,
so people in the government wanted some extra assurances.”
In the short run, the construction of the new facility will employ up to 2,000
construction workers.
“Right now Eutaw Construction out of Aberdeen is moving dirt for us,” said
Correnti. “We will slowly work up to the 2,000 mark over the next six or seven
months. After that, the number will taper off until the work is done. We should
be pouring concrete in November, have steel in the air in February and be moving
heavy equipment in about a year from now. Our first steel should roll out of the
plant during the third quarter of 2007.”
Correnti says that when the time comes to hire workers to staff the steel mill,
he will be looking for a very specific kind of employee
“We will need about 350 computer literate people with high school diplomas,” he
said. “I want stable, motivated people, who want to settle down and build a life
for themselves. We will pay our employees to produce. The more steel made, the
more money made, we will pass that along to the employees. A worker's salary
will depend on what they and their team can produce that week. We have no job
descriptions, because this is a team effort, we expect each worker to deal with
any problems they see rather that assuming that it is not their job.”
Workers say SeverCorr will work 12 hour shifts with a four days on, four days
off or three days on three days off schedule. Correnti believes that the longer
shifts with more days off, give workers more options with their families,
leading to a higher quality of life.
SeverCorr hopes to produce 1.5 million tons of steel in the first year of
production, increasing to 2.5 million within the next three years.
“This plant will be three times more efficient than a large scale steel mill,”
said Correnti. “This will be due to the structure of the facility and the
culture of production that our hiring and pay policies will create. In the end,
it is about the people. I believe that rural Americans can out produce any other
worker from anywhere else in the world.”