New Lovelock manufacturing plant could employ up to 1,500

Sunday, March 6, 2005 | 1:06 a.m.

LOVELOCK, Nev. - Construction is scheduled to begin in Lovelock next month on a manufacturing plant that could employ as many as 1,500 people.

Far West Technologies last week announced plans to build prefabricated houses and commercial buildings at a 50-acre site in the Pershing County Industrial Park about 90 miles east of Reno.

Bob Patterson, the company's president and CEO, said the plant would employ about 300 people when it opens in 2006. There will be about 1,000 employees in 2007 and as many as 1,500 a year later, he said.

Sacramento, Calif.-based Far West also looked at sites in neighboring Churchill and Storey counties before deciding on the Lovelock site along Interstate 80 and the Union Pacific Railroad line.

Pershing County offered the site free of charge on the condition that the plant hires between 250 and 300 people when it opens, Patterson said.

The jobs will pay an average $15 an hour, he added.

"(The Lovelock area) went all out in greeting us, making us feel at home and accommodating us," Patterson told the Lahontan Valley News & Fallon Eagle Standard newspaper.

The plant will ship nearly-completed houses and commercial buildings to sites in the United States and abroad.

Elaine Pommerening, executive director of the county development authority, said the plant's economic impact on Lovelock would be "fantastic."

The economy of the rural county of about 6,600 people is unhealthy because mines have either closed or laid off workers, she said.

"People here in Lovelock are really enthusiastic about the new plant," Pommerening said. "It will bring in more people and businesses and help us grow."

Patterson said he envisions Lovelock and nearby Fallon becoming sister cities, with many employees commuting to work from Fallon.

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Information from: Lahontan Valley News, http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com