State Controlling Board members approved a grant Monday that will boost hiring at Ironton’s newest manufacturing plant.

Tuesday, April 25, 2000

State Controlling Board members approved a grant Monday that will boost hiring at Ironton’s newest manufacturing plant. Liebert North America Inc. received a $500,000 grant from the state’s Business Development account, Ohio Department of Development director C. Lee Johnson announced.

The funds will be used to offset the cost of new machinery and equipment for the company’s $4 million Ironton project, Johnson said.

Liebert, which announced plans March 27 to lease the 120,000-square-foot Cabletron Systems building for manufacturing, already has been moving equipment into the plant and training workers, Lawrence Economic Development Corporation officials said.

Company officials have said they want to see work begin within weeks.

State tax incentives – those formerly granted by the state and the LEDC to Cabletron – helped entice Liebert to the area. Liebert will take advantage of the same incentives because the LEDC had secured the incentives for the plant facility, not Cabletron.

Already, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority has approved an 84 percent tax credit for a five-year term for Liebert’s start-up, ODOD officials said.

The job creation tax credit is a refundable tax credit against the business corporate franchise or income tax. The credit equals a percentage of the new state income tax withheld on new full-time employees.

Liebert had been waiting on approval of the $500,000 grant since the March 27 announcement.

Other state incentives – including a $3 million direct loan and up to $125,000 in Ohio Industrial Training Program grant funds – are waiting on the approval of several state agencies, ODOD officials said.

The LEDC granted a 10-year lease to Liebert earlier this month. The company has an option to purchase after six years.

Liebert manufactures and markets a line of precision air conditioning, electrical power distribution and uninterruptable power supply systems for a wide variety of computer room, telecommunications and industrial applications.

Once Liebert begins operations in its newly-leased Ironton plant, it expects to employ an estimated 150 people within six months and an additional 50 people over the next three years, company officials said.

Liebert, created in the late 1940s, expanded into serving the computer industry in the mid-1960s. It has been a division of St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Co. since 1987.