Background on the President’s Events Today in Youngstown, Ohio

On Tuesday, the President will travel to Youngstown, Ohio, and tour the facilities of V&M Star, a manufacturer of steel tubular goods, before delivering remarks on jobs and the economy to workers.

The President will discuss how efforts to rescue the economy are working, creating jobs, growing small businesses and keeping communities like Youngstown going.  The President will talk about how the unpopular choices he made on the economy were the right choices to make, as evidenced by the fourth straight month of job growth and largest increase of jobs in four years.  And he’ll rebuke Republicans for making a politically calculated decision early on to sit on the sidelines and obstruct any measure aimed to help Americans during these difficult economic times.  The President will remind all of us how much work we have to do and how he’ll keep fighting until every American who wants a good job has one.

Facility Facts – Provided by V&M Star

V&M Star is located in the heart of Youngstown’s old steel corridor.  V&M is in the process of a $650 million expansion of its operations, thanks in-part to the Recovery Act.  A $20 million Recovery Act investment in transportation infrastructure funding helped propel the expansion when it was under consideration by Vallourec, the parent company of V&M Star. The new mill, totaling more than one million square feet of space, will be located in Brier Hill Industrial Park that was created through a cooperative agreement between the cities of Girard and Youngstown Ohio. Recovery Act funds were allocated to make the park a “shovel ready” site for an industrial use such as V&M’s expansion.  The new facility is expected to employ an additional 350 people, doubling the size of V&M Youngstown’s workforce once complete.

With the help of $4.37 million of the Recovery Act funds – through the Ohio Department of Transportation – excavating, grading and drainage improvements to the site, are nearly complete.  Thirty-five jobs have been created so far as part of this Phase I project.  Later this month, a contract will be awarded for Phase II, the building of a rail spur and rail marshalling yard that will help V&M efficiently move their freight to and from the main railway.  Phase II will be funded with the help of an estimated $16.5 million in Recovery Act funds through the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Construction of the actual manufacturing facility, which will start operations in the fourth quarter of 2011, will be entirely funded by V&M and is expected to create 400 construction jobs at the site.  The project is expected to take approximately eighteen months to complete with the new facility fully operational in the fourth quarter of 2011.