MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Today marks the beginning of a four-year hiring period for manufacturing company Procter & Gamble, as the company begins accepting applications for its Tabler Station plant.
The plant is estimated to open fall 2017, with 300 employees hired by 2017 and 700 total employees hired by 2019. Hiring will begin in spring 2016, and the company is expected to recruit new hires from a 60-mile radius around Martinsburg.
The Tabler Station plant is located about four miles south of Martinsburg at Exit 8 on Interstate 81. When completed, the plant will have more than one million square feet under roof on a 458-acre site and will manufacture several of the company’s brands.
Procter & Gamble is facilitating all hiring through its websitewww.pgcareers.com, with the website as the only point of entry for applicants. The company will also be participating in a job fair, along with 57 other employers, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the Martinsburg Mall.
Jeff LeRoy, senior manager of media relations for P&G, emphasized the company is looking for skilled applicants and that the hiring would be going on for four years to give time for those currently unqualified to receive training through programs at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College.
“We’ve worked very closely with Blue Ridge. They know the skills needed and is modeling the curriculum to meet the demand and quality. Blue Ridge knows what we need,” LeRoy said.
The skill set emphasized for the Tabler Station plant is mechanical skills, electrical skills, manufacturing and production, making and packing operation and equipment and machinery options.
According to BRCTC President Dr. Peter Checkovich, the college has begun a long-term partnership with the manufacturer to provide curriculum options for those seeking training. He said the college has four existing programs that would benefit anyone seeking employment with P&G: mechatronics, instrumentation, chemical process control and robotics.
“We think we have some program in place that are already of interest to them, and we have some grant money to work with, so if there are other new programs that they need for whatever their educational need would be, we can respond to that,” Checkovich said.
Blue Ridge Community and Technical College received a $30,000 grant from P&G to use toward curriculum needs for, but will be able to receive a match for the grant from the state, totaling $60,000, he said.
“We can get a lot of education with that,” Checkovich said. “We’re going to tailor the need to the company in term of the length of the degree program and what’s taught in it. Some of that will start in the spring semester. They’ve looked at some of the curriculum we’ve put together already and they’re pretty satisfied with it. There may be a couple of tweaks, but I think you’ll start seeing some of this begin to develop this spring, like January or February.”
By offering curriculum and training options now, residents will have about two years to train and acquire the requested skills before the plant opens, Checkovich said. He anticipates the partnership with P&G will have a positive impact on the college’s enrollment.
LeRoy said that when submitting an application through the website, each applicant will receive an answer, but cannot predict how long the process will take until an answer is given. He predicted responses will be slower initially due to a large number of anticipated applications.
Procter & Gamble is still doing analysis on what a competitive wage for this region will be.
Staff writer Samantha Cronk can be reached at 304-263-8931, ext. 132, or twitter.com/scronkJN.