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New, large employer signs training pact
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State and local officials, and representatives of Firth Rixson and other regional businesses, post for a photo during the ceremony. Seated are, from left, Jackie Rohosky, Quick Start assistant commissioner , Chris Bohlmann, Firth Rixson vice president and general manager, and Dr. Kathy Love, Savannah Technical College president. - photo by Photo by Seraine Page
The Liberty County Development Authority hosted the official signing of the training agreement between Firth Rixson Forgings, LLC, and Georgia Quick Start during a ceremony Thursday. Under the agreement, 200 jobs reportedly will be created at the new Firth Rixson plant in Midway.
Firth Rixson, which is based in the U.K., makes highly engineered, forged and specialty metal products. The new 200,000-square-foot facility in the Tradeport East Business Center will be Firth Rixson’s fourth closed-die forging facility worldwide and the most significant expansion in the history of the company, according to the company’s website.
Local and state officials, including Hinesville Mayor Jim Thomas and State Sen. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, along with employees from Firth Rixson, Georgia Quick Start and the LCDA attended the signing ceremony.
The training partnership through Georgia Quick Start will develop training material and provide classes for instruction geared toward training the 200 new Firth Rixson employees, said Jan Melcher, regional director of Georgia Quick Start.
“It will provide real stability in the work force here,” Melcher said of the new partnership.
She also said the training is custom-designed to meet the needs of the new company and that employees will gain skills to bring with them from job to job.
“We work hand-in-hand with their work expertise,” she said.
Georgia Quick Start provides customized workforce training free-of-charge to qualified businesses in Georgia, according to its website.
“We really designed a program that starts out with some cores skills — a lot of safety training involved in that,” said Eddiea Fite, team project manager for Quick Start. “We’re doing a lot of in-depth training with people.”
Firth Rixson is also still hiring workers to be trained for various positions, said Chris Bohlmann, Firth Rixson vice president and general manager.
“It is really with great pleasure today that we’re here to sign the training program and really it is a work force development program for our company,” he said. “We’re going to grow for some period of time in this community and we’re really looking forward to that.”
Bohlmann expects the facility construction to be completed in December. 
Training also will involve Savannah Technical College students who will assist Firth Rixson employees with ongoing programs, according to a press release from Georgia Quick Start.
Bohlmann, Savannah Technical College President Dr. Kathy Love and Quick Start assistant commissioner Jackie Rohosky signed the partnership papers, stopping briefly to pose for photographs between shuffling pages of the agreement.
Firth Rixson serves customers worldwide in market sectors such as aerospace, defense, power generation, transportation, petrochemical, medical and general industrial. Firth Rixson owns 11 operating facilities in North America, Europe and Asia, according to its website.

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Record April boosts Savannah's container trade at port
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The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

The Georgia Ports Authority's busiest April ever pushed its fiscal year-to-date totals to more than 3.4 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), an increase of 8.8 percent, or 280,000 TEUs, compared to the first 10 months of fiscal 2017.

"We're on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority," said GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch. "We're also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs."

April volumes reached 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units, up 7.1 percent or 23,700 units. As the fastest growing containerport in the nation, the Port of Savannah has achieved a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent a year over the past decade.

"As reported in the recent economic impact study by UGA's Terry College of Business, trade through Georgia's deepwater ports translates into jobs, higher incomes and greater productivity," said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood. "In every region of Georgia, employers rely on the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to help them become more competitive on the global stage."

To strengthen the Port of Savannah's ability to support the state's future economic growth, the GPA Board approved $66 million in terminal upgrades, including $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.  

"The authority is committed to building additional capacity ahead of demand to ensure the Port of Savannah remains a trusted link in the supply chain serving Georgia and the Southeast," Lynch said.

The crane purchase will bring the fleet at Garden City Terminal to 156 RTGs. The new cranes will support three new container rows, which the board approved in March. The additional container rows will increase annual capacity at the Port of Savannah by 150,000 TEUs.

The RTGs will work over stacks that are five containers high and six deep, with a truck lane running alongside the stacks. Capable of running on electricity, the cranes will have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons.

The cranes will arrive in two batches of five in the first and second quarters of calendar year 2019.

 Also at Monday's meeting, the GPA Board elected its officers, with Jimmy Allgood as chairman, Will McKnight taking the position of vice chairman and Joel Wooten elected as the next secretary/treasurer.

For more information, visit gaports.com, or contact GPA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Robert Morris at (912) 964-3855 or rmorris@gaports.com.

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