“Instead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony, we should have lemons and squeeze them into lemonade,” the governor said during a ribbon ceremony inside what is now BX’s cargo sorting building.
It has been in operation since Nov. 18 after a quick remake from an airplane-focused facility to one handling primarily truck-borne freight.
Chris Marshall, BX’s chief executive choked up as he thanked the 250-member work force — about 80 percent of whom had worked for BAX — for their help in getting BX Solutions started.
“We have all had many long days and tough sacrifices,” Mr. Marshall said.
Governor Kasich’s visit to BX was his second ribbon-cutting of the day in northwest Ohio.
He had attended the morning grand opening in Findlay of Hamlet Protein, which makes a cattle-feed additive.
BAX Global had about 700 employees at Toledo Express on July 22 when its German parent, DB Schenker, announced it was shutting the hub Sept. 1 because of a fundamental decline in the air-cargo business.
But the BAX shutdown left behind a facility and work force with a strong reputation in the transport industry for careful work and customer service, Mr. Marshall said.
With state and local support, he said, the hub now has been “transformed to match the market demands of multi-modal transportation.”
The Ohio Department of Development loan to the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority that helped finance the hub’s conversion to a truck-oriented facility becomes a grant if, by April, 2013, BX has at least 100 full-time and 400 part-time employees.
According to a port authority staff report prepared in October, BX expects to boost its payroll to 250 full-time and 350 part-time employees by its first anniversary.
Mr. Marshall said Friday he is confident there will be further announcements about his company’s growth.
Mr. Kasich said BX Solutions is the sort of local business Ohio must develop to rebuild its industrial economy, because when businesses have deep local roots, “you never worry about the next announcement” from overseas headquarters.
Paul Toth, the port authority’s president and CEO, had said earlier in the ceremony, “It was easy for a German company to shut [BAX] down. Our future in this state is homegrown. We have to find the BX Solutions [type companies] and nurture them.”
Showing a bit of stage nerves, Mr. Marshall quickly recovered to laughter and applause after he started saying his former employer’s name instead of his own company’s: “Our community rallied in support, and because of that, BAX Gl — BX Solutions is operational today.”
William Carroll, chairman of the port authority board, said he and fellow port directors were initially skeptical of the BX proposal because Mr. Marshall and his managers were unknown to them, but after hearing their business plan, they were persuaded that “this is going to grow, and grow, and grow more.”
Mr. Kasich analogized economic development to a championship football team that builds to success with a solid, all-around game instead of relying on big plays, because “hail Marys usually don’t work that well.”
BX’s apparent success and recent announcements from Chrysler Group LLC, Marathon Petroleum Corp., and Whirlpool Corp. all paint a bright picture for northwest Ohio, the governor said.
“If we can make things, and we can ship things, we can bring the supply chain back to the United States,” he said. “Manufacturing is the key to the middle class, and we don’t want to give up on that.”
Though Governor Kasich said both during the BX ceremony and earlier in Findlay that helping established Ohio companies expand and prosper will be the biggest factor in turning Ohio’s struggling economy around, he cited opportunities from international investment too during the Findlay appearance.
Hamlet, a 20-year-old company based in Denmark, enriches soybean protein to make a feed additive intended primarily for young livestock. After abandoning plans in 2008 to build a U.S. plant in Iowa because of the recession, it focused on Ohio during a more recent siting search because of the state’s infrastructure and large soybean crop. The Ohio Department of Development granted a $2 million direct loan to Hamlet in March to assist with the purchase of the 88,000-square-foot facility where production began this month.
At the time, state officials said Hamlet would create 25 jobs; Mr. Kasich said Friday he sees the chance for more.
“This is going to be big here,” the governor said before a ribbon cutting. “They’re not going to say it today because they’ve got to take the first few steps. … If we do our job right, we can help them to solve some of their problems. This is fantastic. Because at the end of the day, it’s about jobs.”
Danish medical and pharmaceutical firms offer particularly bright foreign-investment prospects, said the governor, who was accompanied in Findlay by Peter Taksoe-Jensen, Denmark’s ambassador to the United States.
Mr. Taksoe-Jensen told the audience he was impressed with the governor and looked forward to discussions about how his country might build more economic bridges with Ohio. “It really is something that makes a lot of sense,” the ambassador said.
Blade staff writer Tyrel Linkhorn contributed to this report.
Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.