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Governor Joe Manchin speaks at Mustang Survival in Elizabeth while plant manager Greg Stover (left), Mustang CEO Bob Askew (behind Manchin) and vice president Ken Gulick listen. Photo by David Hedges

And that may just be the start.

“A hundred (jobs) is just a milestone. It could go beyond that,” Mustang CEO Bob Askew said at a ceremony Thursday at Mustang’s plant in Elizabeth that included official announcement of the expansion by Governor Joe Manchin.

“Another hundred jobs, that’s pretty special,” Manchin told the audience that included Mustang employees and local officials from Wirt and Roane counties.

Manchin praised the employees at the Wirt facility for making the expansion happen.

“You made it possible for another hundred people to get a paycheck,” the governor said.

The ceremony marked Mustang’s 10th anniversary in Wirt County, where the Canadian-based company employs around 100 people at facilities on both sides of W.Va. 14. In 1999 Mustang acquired the former Wirt Inflatables operation that was started in 1978.

Plant manager Greg Stover said Mustang would begin operations at the former Goodrich location in the Roane Industrial Park by the end of this month.

He said plans were to start with 20 employees, and add another 20 each quarter until reaching a hundred. But he said the number could go even higher.

“We want to get to a hundred and assess from there,” Stover said.

“I’m going to push for more,” Craig Fisher, vice president of supply chain who is responsible for Mustang’s operations in West Virginia, said. Fisher said there is no shortage of work, which should be good news for potential employees.

Of the 85 production workers in Elizabeth, he said five or six would probably transfer to Spencer. He said as many as nine have already expressed an interest in working at the new operation.

“It makes things a lot easier to get up to speed,” Fisher said. “With the products we make, training is quite hard.”

Mustang, which also operates facilities in British Columbia and the state of Washington, makes personal flotation devices, survival suits and other life saving apparel for customers that include the military and NASA. The U.S. Coast Guard is one of the company’s biggest customers.

Orders for the products are increasing because of federal stimulus money, which comes with a requirement the items be manufactured in the U.S.

Company officials said earlier that a favorable exchange rate with U.S. and Canadian currency also played a role in their expansion plans.

But on Thursday, all the emphasis was on the local people, including potential employees who turned out for a job fair in Spencer.

“We didn’t pick Roane County. Roane County picked us,” Askew said, referring to the job fair in April that drew nearly 400 applicants. A similar event in Wood County drew only around 135 applicants.

“They didn’t just show up in numbers,” Askew said of the turnout in Roane County, where several applicants also took sewing tests.

“They showed up in numbers with skills,” Askew said.

Stover said no new employees had been hired pending signing of a lease on the Goodrich building.

The Roane EDA was in the process of purchasing the building from a holding company owned by Marcel Elefant, CEO of General Woods and Veneers, which operated the former Spencer Veneer plant in the industrial park that closed in 2007.

Mark Whitley, economic development director for Roane and Jackson counties, said the property transaction was expected to be finalized the next day.

After the ceremony in Elizabeth, Mustang officials came to Spencer to tour the facility.

Mustang is leasing the original portion of the structure from the EDA that includes 28,000 square feet of manufacturing space and another 3,000-4,000 feet of office space.

Whitley said the building has a total of 109,000 square feet. He said the EDA is reserving an additional 45,000 square feet of the building for possible expansion by Mustang.

Whitley said the first year of the five-year lease would be at no cost to the company.

“This expansion is truly a community effort,” Whitley said. “Everyone got involved.

“It’s good for West Virginia and the region and it’s definitely wonderful news for Roane County,” Whitley said.