Hercules Tire and Rubber Announces Expansion to Kern County

    Bakersfield, CA - February 19, 2008- Hercules Tire & Rubber has announced that it will be rolling out product from a new Kern County distribution center when the company expands into its new site on District Boulevard in Bakersfield. The company will move into an existing 63,000 sq. ft. facility and expects to begin operation in April.  Ten to 15 jobs are expected to be created.

    Coby Vance, Sales Associate with CBRE, is handling the transaction. 

    Hercules Tire & Rubber Company was formed more than 50 years ago and is known for its Hercules and Merit brand tires, among others.  The company has associates in more than 92 countries, and utilizes nearly two million sq. ft. of warehouse space around the world, including sites in Union City and Compton. 

    The new Bakersfield location will help serve Hercules’ large Central Valley customer base, eliminating two trucks per day which were previously driving to Kern County from Compton.

Businesses Looking to Kern

    BY Vanessa Gregory, Californian staff writer
    Last Updated: Friday, Jan 25 2008

   Bakersfield, CA - A number of businesses -- including furniture mega-retailer IKEA -- are looking to expand or establish operations in Kern County.

    About 10 companies are seriously scouting the county for space to house corporate headquarters, distribution facilities, health care-related businesses and aerospace operations, Richard Chapman, president and CEO of the Kern Economic Development Corp., said at a quarterly board of directors meeting Thursday.

    Chapman did not name the companies, but Railex, a New York-based agricultural shipping company, is among them, according to Delano City Manager Abdel Salem.

    The company plans to construct and open a 200,000-square-foot distribution facility in Delano near Browning and Schuster roads by July 1, Salem said. The new facility will bring much-needed jobs, initially employing 80 and increasing its work force to 300 within a few years, he said.

    "Employment is a major issue for us, as you can guess," Salem said "The (city) unemployment rate is between 20 to 25 percent on the average."

    The company is working with the city of Delano, but cannot say anything more, Railex Senior Vice President Paul Esposito said by phone.

    Railex will use trains, rather than trucks, to transport produce to the East Coast, Salem said. The company will build a short, private rail line from the planned factory to connect with the main Union Pacific line, Salem said.

    At the county's south end, Sweden-based IKEA, the international furniture giant, may expand its existing distribution facilities at Tejon Industrial Complex, at the base of the Grapevine.

    IKEA, which already leases about 2 million square feet from Tejon Ranch Co., is "talking about" taking 400,000 square feet of space in an approximately 600,000-square-foot warehouse being constructed by Tejon, Dean Brown, director of construction at Tejon, said during Thursday's meeting.

    In Bakersfield, M.D. Manufacturing Inc., which makes central vacuum systems for homes, plans to build a new factory that will be more than twice the size of its existing plant near Union Avenue and Brundage Lane, according to a news release from the company.

    M.D. Manufacturing moved from Los Angeles to Bakersfield in 1988 and employs between 25 and 50 workers, Chief Operating Officer Grant Olewiler said. The move to the planned 74,000-square-foot building near 7th Standard Road and Highway 99 will result in 20 to 30 more jobs in coming years, he said.

    The company plans to build four other buildings suitable for office and warehouse tenants in the 14-acre parcel it has named the Emdy Business Park. M.D. Manufacturing estimates it will move into its new factory by September.

Virgin Galactic Unveils the Kern-Built  Spacecraft

    BY David B. Caruso, The Associated Press
   Last Updated: Wednesday, Jan 23 2008

     New York — A select group of rich tourists may be blasting into space from the desert of Kern County within a few years.

    "Breathtakingly beautiful," was Branson's assessment of the ship, which is now under construction at a hangar in the Mojave Desert. The vehicle is designed to take passengers about 62 miles above Earth for the fun of it, with test flights possibly beginning this year.

    The spacecraft doesn't look like its predecessor, SpaceShipOne, which earned Rutan's team the $10 million Ansari X prize in 2004 for creating the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly into space twice in two weeks.

    SpaceShipOne, which was built by Rutan's company Scaled Composites in Mojave, was big enough to carry only one person and looked like something Flash Gordon would have flown.

    SpaceShipTwo will carry as many as six passengers and two crew members into orbit, where they can unbuckle themselves for about 41/2 minutes of weightlessness and an unparalleled view before gliding back to Earth.

    Speaking to reporters at the American Museum of Natural History, Branson and Rutan also showed off a model of the big, four-engine jet that will help launch the craft into space.

    The twin-fuselage airplane, called the White Knight Two, will carry SpaceShipTwo high into the sky beneath a single 140-foot wing.

    Will Whitehorn, president of Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, said construction on the White Knight Two is already more than 70 percent complete. SpaceShipTwo is about 60 percent complete, he said.

    About 200 prospective passengers from 30 countries have made reservations, shelling out $200,000 apiece. Many were in attendance for Wednesday's presentation, including Ken Baxter, 58, of Las Vegas.

    "You can't even imagine my excitement," said Baxter after seeing the models. A real estate marketing executive, he said he recently completed preflight training that included being subjected to extreme g-forces in a whirling centrifuge and hopes to be in space in a year.

    "Yeah, I'm scared," he said. "But this is about realizing a childhood dream. Space travel is something I've been thinking about since I read Jules Verne as a kid."

    The inherent risk of spaceflight was highlighted in July, when a tank of nitrous oxide exploded in a remote corner of the Mojave Airport during a routine test of SpaceShipTwo's propellant system.

    Three people died in the accident and three others were injured. California occupational safety inspectors fined Scaled Composites almost $26,000 and said the company hadn't sufficiently trained its workers. Investigators and company engineers are still trying to figure out what went wrong.

    "We don't know yet exactly what caused it," Rutan said. He added that there was "no question" the accident is delaying the engine's development but did not comment on whether the delay would disrupt plans for test flights.

    Rutan acknowledged the project has risks but said the spacecraft will be at least as safe as early commercial airlines in the 1920s.

    By modern standards, that era was not a particularly safe one, but Rutan said SpaceShipTwo would be "hundreds of times safer" than government-funded space flight. Branson said he has reserved seats on one of the early flights for his elderly mother and father.

Kern County looking ahead to boost region's economy

    Tina Forde, Antelope Valley Press staff writer
    Saturday, January 5 2008

    TEHACHAPI - Representatives of eastern Kern County cities, school districts and economic development organizations agreed Friday to move forward with the costly and complicated process of applying to establish an Enterprise Zone to boost economic development in the region.

    An Enterprise Zone offers significant tax credits to businesses within the zone, including a hiring tax credit of as much as $37,440 per employee over a five-year period. A 61-square-mile Antelope Valley Enterprise Zone serving Lancaster and Palmdale was established in 1997.

    "I look around this room and I don't see anybody I don't trust," said Stuart Witt, general manager of the East Kern Airport District. "We need to kick this can down the road a bit. To win, you buy the best you can. I'm ready to write a check. I'm ready to hire a consultant. I'm ready to lay out a plan for success." 

    The Kern County Community and Economic Development Department is spearheading the establishment of the East Kern Enterprise Zone. Department Director Barry Jung and Economic Development Manager Paul Sippel called the civic leaders together Friday to assess the depth of commitment to securing the Enterprise Zone designation, which the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency grants to economically depressed areas to encourage and stimulate growth, development and investment.

    The Kern Economic Development Corporation, represented at the meeting by President and CEO Richard Chapman, will function as the lead agency and "pass-through" agency to handle the funds for the application process.

    Current California legislation allows for 42 Enterprise Zones.

   "Four zones are expiring in 2008," Sippel said. "Most re-apply for designation."

    Sippel told the gathering of 20 people at Veterans Hall that to fund the first phase of the East Kern Enterprise Zone application effort, the city of Tehachapi has committed $15,000; California City $10,000; the East Kern Airport District $10,000; and the Rosamond Community Services District $5,000.

    According to an exploratory budget worked out after an initial meeting on the subject in Mojave in August, the total cost of the application will be $220,950 of which $172,000.00 is for consulting fees. The consulting fees assume that no environmental impact report is required.

    "California eliminated the EIR requirement if it can be solved by a negative declaration or mitigated declaration," Sippel said.

    In the meeting memorandum, Sippel said, "Because the overall scope and costs are likely larger than what has been previously discussed - inclusion of Boron, Inyokern and Ridgecrest is being contemplated, and the roles of Kern Economic Development Corporation and this Department have become central to the preparation of an application - we need your feedback to determine the viability of proceeding with a multi-jurisdiction application."

    Enterprise zones in California range in size from 67,000 acres to 400 acres, Sippel said.
The proposed East Kern Enterprise Zone boundary is sizeable and still fluid.

    "One application encompasses the parts of East Kern that the state allows to be included in Enterprise Zone boundaries," Jung said. "We have created a boundary that includes all of these jurisdictions - Ridgecrest to Rosamond, Tehachapi and east to Boron. Those are the boundaries we are working within. We don't know if the state will agree it's a workable boundary.

    "We started in August with Tehachapi, California City, Rosamond and Mojave. After discussions we included Ridgecrest and Inyokern."

    Including Ridgecrest might pose a problem, Sippel and Jung said - the incomes there are too high to qualify as distressed. Jung called it a "complication."

    From the audience, Jon Collard, president of American Tax Incentives in Valencia, said that the affluent Santa Clarita area managed to land an Enterprise Zone, in part because the consultant knew how to present the demographics most effectively.

    In granting the designation of Enterprise Zone and the tax breaks that come with it, the state requires that an applicant meet three of the following five "distress" criteria: net increase of per capita income between 1990 and 2004 is 80 percent of the statewide average or less; unemployment is more than 7.4%; more than 15.2% of the residents is living below the poverty line; more than 70% of households have incomes below 80 % of median county family income; and the area has been declared a disaster area by the president of the United States.

    In addition to Ridgecrest, certain areas of Tehachapi do not meet the criteria, "but more areas do meet the three out of five," Sippel said.

    As for the disaster declaration, he said, the flooding of April 14, 2005, fits the requirement.

    "As long as that's in place, the areas will meet three of the five."

    East Kern, he said, does not meet the unemployment requirement.

    One unknown is how business and industry leaders will respond.

    forde@avpress.com