The recent announcement that a primary metals manufacturing facility is coming to South Carolina shows how growth in one place can promote growth in another.
Mega Metal, a Turkey-based company, is investing $34 million to build a copper wire manufacturing plant in Fairfield County, just north of Columbia. It will create 135 jobs and is expected to be operational by September 2025.
“Fairfield County celebrates the arrival of Mega Metal, bringing 135 new jobs and a $34 million investment to the central region of South Carolina. With a strong foundation in industries thriving here, we’re confident they’ll achieve great success here in the heart of our state,” said Matthew Shaffer, Chairman of the Central SC Alliance.
Central SC Alliance covers the City of Columbia and Calhoun, Clarendon, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lexington, Newberry, Orangeburg, and Richland Counties.
Its mission is similar to Western SC Economic Development, which is the umbrella organization for Aiken, Edgefield, Saluda, and McCormick Counties.
Will Williams, President and CEO of Western SC Economic Development, told ABD that even if a company is not in his immediate area, it can still have an indirect impact locally.
“There may not be a direct impact in Aiken County, but there could be an indirect impact because they may use Kimberly Clark toilet paper, or they may use maybe Bart Blackwell, President and owner of B & S Machine Tool, Inc. He’s got a small machine shop. Maybe he gets business with them. So, some companies are located here that are lower down in the supply chain. Maybe they make some parts for a machine, or they do something else like that to support that industry.”
While Mega Metal selected Fairfield County for its first operation in South Carolina, Robbie Bennett, president and CEO of the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization (SRSCRO), said this area is well familiar with such industries.
“GIW (in Grovetown) has been doing metals in this market for 100-plus years, and people don’t realize it, there’s a metallurgy lab on site at GIW. Because they’re doing research. They’re understanding what’s going on, how it works,” he said. “When these announcements happen, you create a cluster. What that does is, like we see from the military and cybersecurity, like we see in nuclear, these clusters lift up regions. And it’s not just our region, it’s what I would deem mega regions.”
Another example is out of Edgefield County.
In 2024, Portland Bolt and Manufacturing wanted to expand its footprint beyond its home base in Portland, Ore. To do so, it purchased Southern Anchor Bolt and added a new facility to expand the operation. The $4.3 million investment will create more than 20 jobs.
Jobs and the trained people to fill them, represent another factor when similar industries choose to open new facilities or expand existing ones.
“That’s correct, both the workforce and the suppliers. For every job that’s created directly, there are also indirect jobs that are suppliers to that industry, or they could be customers,” said Williams. “So, if you’ve got Aurubis there that’s making copper wire, then there might be downstream customers for that. That moves more into secondary processing, but it does build a supply chain that you can build upon.”
Bennett said his organization started a workforce conversation in 2009, prompted by the need for a nuclear workforce to support construction at the Savannah River Site and Plant Vogtle.
“We contracted a Booz Allen Hamilton study because we knew MOX (Mixed Oxide) was under construction. Plant Vogtle was about to be under construction. Westinghouse was expanding,” he said. “We knew regionally, there was a nuclear workforce Renaissance happening. That study said we needed 10,000 people in the nuclear industry. I think it was wrong, I think we needed a whole lot more. But that gave us a starting point that allowed us to bring everybody together to create the nuclear workforce.”
But, he said, if this area wants to continue to feed the still-growing demand, it will require attracting new people to move here.
At the Tuesday groundbreaking for the South Carolina National Guard Cyber Integration Center, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette said that it creates the need for housing and services.
“We’ve seen that in South Carolina time and time again. When we have big projects like this, or companies that come to South Carolina to call home, what does it do? It brings people, and it brings opportunity for other small businesses that use that as a feeder,” she said. “With something like this, every builder is going to need to build a house for somebody that’s moving here. And restaurants are going to get more and more full, and that’s how the American dream continues to evolve.”
Williams said the South Carolina Department of Commerce tries to facilitate attracting new businesses with a directory on its website. A company can use the searchable directory, which lists every business in the state, ranging from agriculture to manufacturing, its products and location, to find an area with vendors and suppliers they need.
