ELEANOR, W.Va. — A manufacturing facility in Putnam County is expanding its operations to help run data centers across the country.
nVent Electric develops large outdoor buildings that ensure power inside a data center never goes out. The buildings developed in Eleanor are shipped out to several different states.
“If the power goes down in a data center, these things will kick on,” said facility controller Andrew Metz Tuesday morning. “They run the battery for a while and then they will connect to generators, so they are the key component to make sure a data center’s power never goes down.”
The company, which was formerly known as “Parkline,” already has a staff of roughly 150 workers. Metz confirmed Tuesday that they’re ready to hire 100 new workers to develop the power buildings.
nVent’s facility in Eleanor currently sits on about 16 acres of land. Apart from the addition of jobs, the facility will be expanding by 117,000-square-feet.
Metz says nVent is at a place where more bodies are needed to get the buildings shipped in a timely manner.
“The building with all the electrical components will take three to four weeks to build and three to four weeks to wire,” Metz said. “One of the things with this expansion and the investment we’re working with here is to cut down that time substantially to be able to get more out of here faster.”
“We’re roughly going to be sending out several buildings every week,” he continued.
Putnam County Commission President Andy Skidmore says this is exactly what the county needs.
“We’re growing and it’s great to be a part of and we’re seeing the right type of growth,” Skidmore told MetroNews. “These types of jobs are great to raise families and stay in our community.”
“We have students here that want to stay in Putnam County and want to stay in the state of West Virginia. This gives them an opportunity for that,” he said.
nVent will be hosting a job fair on Thursday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. to start building up their expanded staff.
“We will make offers there if we have qualified individuals that apply,” Metz said. ‘We need all of these people by roughly mid-January of 2026, so we are moving at a fast pace.”