Wind turbine tower plant coming (Iowa, 400 area jobs) [View All]

[jpak]

http://www.dailygate.com/articles/2007/10/09/news/01.txt

Keokuk will move from Iowa's industrial sidelines into the limelight Wednesday with the announcement of a major wind turbine tower manufacturing plant planned for the city's Mississippi Riverfront. The new industry is expected to provide about 400 jobs in the area.

Gov. Chet Culver, who is making a “Bringing New Jobs to Iowa Day” loop through the state, will join Keokuk Mayor Dave Gudgel, billionaire entrepreneur Ken Hendricks of Beloit, Wis., and a host of dignitaries to discuss the plant at 11 a.m. at Southeastern Iowa Port Terminal, 2301 Twin Rivers Drive, Keokuk.

Hendricks Holdings owns the port terminal and the tower plant coming to Keokuk.

“I look at this as truly a beginning,” Gudgel said. “When you look at the wind energy industry, there are so many satellite businesses that produce the integral parts of the blade mechanism. You see the blades and the housings are quite large, as big as a small cabin on a passenger plane, and you look at those long structures, towers, holding it all up.”

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