Dell Already Has Impact Before Plant Opens

Sep. 8–Matthew Nagem of Thomasville symbolizes the opportunities that the Dell Inc. project already has fostered in the Triad.

Nagem, a 40-year-old engineer, looked for more than a year for a job in the region so he could move here from Charlotte. He had little success until he applied for a position with a contractor that supplies shipping line conveyors for Dell’s manufacturing plant, which will open later this month.

“If it wasn’t for Dell having the operation here, I probably wouldn’t have got the position,” Nagem said.

Nagem’s experience shows that the economic ripples of the Dell plant already have spread across the Triad before the computer conglomerate rolls its first product off the line. Dell is scheduled to begin production at its plant later this month. Dell has hired 200 people so far and will bring on another 150 workers today, said Michele Blood, spokeswoman for the Texas-based company. Eventually, 1,500 or more people will work at Dell.

The company will invest $100 million in the Triad facility during the next five years. Three suppliers to Dell already have committed to sites in the region, and “two to three others are out there that have not announced a location yet,” said Jeffrey Garstka, vice president of Winston-Salem Business Inc. One of the suppliers is World Wide Technology Inc., which picked a site in High Point. The Dell plant in southeast Forsyth County is 5 miles from the city limit.

“Dell has been positively impacting the High Point and Piedmont Triad economy ever since the site was announced last December,” said Loren Hill, president of High Point Economic Development Corp.

The contractors used by Dell to build the 500,000-square-foot plant have hired the vast majority of their workers locally, said Don Kirkman, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

“We have seen a significant payroll because of the construction project itself,” Kirkman said.

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