MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The construction of the new Procter & Gamble facility off of Tabler Station Road in Martinsburg has been going on consistently for a little over a year now, and some officials are proud to present their progress.
Procter & Gamble, or P&G, originated in October of 1837, is a manufacturing company for many different well known cleaning and household supplies, like fabric softener, soaps, shampoos, deodorants, detergents, and much more.
They feature over 20 “billion dollar brands” which are supplied to 180 countries across the globe.
This facility will be the twenty-fifth plant in the U.S. for P&G, which has companies in 40 different countries.
When deciding on the location for the newest plant, they figured Martinsburg was a perfect fit thanks to their distance from the Interstate 81 corridor, and being in close proximity to one of their major distribution centers in Shippenburg, Pennsylvania.
Construction and Site Manager for the facility, Luis Gutierrez, said they officially started construction last November and the nearly mile-long plant will have over a million square feet under its roof once completed.
He said as far as construction goes, it’s been smooth sailing so far with little to no complaints from the engineers and construction workers.
“We did extensive studies before buying the site, so we knew the geology wasn’t that good,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a little worse than we thought but we’re still managing it and we’re still on schedule. The weather didn’t help us – I’m sure you remember ‘snowmageddon’ earlier this year – that stopped us for a while, but we brought additional equipment and caught up with our schedule. So right now we are on schedule which is very important.”
Gutierrez said they were down for 6 weeks last winter, and this year they have contingencies in place to be down for 2 weeks if necessary.
The General Contractor for the facility is the Fluor Corporation, which has been rated as Ethisphere Magazine’s “Most Ethical Company” for the past 10 years.
Brian Robinson, Senior Project Director at Fluor, said they’re planning for a 4-5 year execution to complete the facility, which will result in a $500 million investment when the dust has settled.
Robinson said there’s 60 to 100 contractors and about 300 workers currently on hand, and there’s expected to be over 1,000 craft workers when construction hits its peak next year and concrete is poured for the first time in January.
He also mentioned several times that safety is a core value for both Fluor and Procter & Gamble, and was proud to announce that after a year of construction there haven’t been any major injuries or road blocks so far.
County Council President, Doug Copenhaver, visited the construction site to see it first hand, and said many different infrastructure projects have taken place in the surrounding Tabler Station area in order to prepare for the arrival of P&G.
The exit ramp and overpass along Interstate 81 had been completely revamped in the recent past to make way for the influx of manufacturing companies, and a 300,000 gallon water tower nearby will be upgraded to a 2 million gallon station in order to provide water for P&G and the homes in the vicinity.
Copenhaver also said the widening of the Potomac River bridge along Interstate 81 will be a huge boon for P&G, as it will make the trip up to their Shippenburg facility an even easier one.
Communications Director for P&G, Jeff LeRoy, is encouraging the public to apply for a career with P&G, and says that technical experience isn’t all they’re looking for.
“Attitude is the most important thing – we can’t train that,” LeRoy explained. “If they have a mechanical aptitude and the right attitude – they’re willing to work and be productive – we can train everything else. We’re looking for people who have the right mentality, the right approach, and have an inclination or a desire to work in this field.”
He said currently mechanical and electrical engineers are two areas they’re heavily looking for.
“You don’t even have to be working in those fields now but if you have an inclination and like doing stuff around the home, like taking apart a lawnmower for example, that’s the kind of skills we look to see if people have. We’ll teach you how to use the equipment we have and train you on the facility’s work processes in everything we do, but again, attitude we can’t teach.”
They’ve received applications from not only people in the tri-state area, but all over the nation, although so far a majority of their applicants are from West Virginians.
Pear Dhiantravan is currently working as a Process Engineer for P&G’s Martinsburg location, and she spends a lot of her time training at the Blue Ridge CTC’s Technology Center off of Winchester Avenue.
As a Chicago native and recent college graduate, Dhiantravan says relocating to the Eastern Panhandle for the job was exciting and easy.
She said she appreciates how much critical thinking is involved with her job, and was happy to know she isn’t doing the exact same thing every day.
“I studied Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University, and studying engineering really gives you a good sense of how to isolate a problem and how to solve it. It’s not just seeing that something is wrong and leaving it to someone else, it’s seeing something is wrong and trying to figure out how to improve it,” she explained. “In college, you have a lot of group projects, so at times I think of this as a giant group project. To be able to organize the scope of what we’re doing and understand everyone’s skills is really useful.”
Most of all, she recommends a career with P&G because of the tight-knit group of colleagues that you can rely on for help.
“I’ve met so many people! My boss, his boss, and his boss and so on. So it’s great to get to know the people I’m working with on a personal level. Since we don’t have cubicles or individual offices everybody works in the same area you can share a lot of materials and communication is faster.”
Entry level Plant Technicians have a base salary of a little over $33,000 a year (not including overtime or basic premium pay), and will receive benefits that total about $25,000 a year.
Officials are looking to have 300 employees at the start of 2017, and eventually grow to 700 by 2019.
To apply for a position at Procter & Gamble, visit pgcareers.com.