Kasich to celebrate 400 new jobs

Gov. John Kasich is planning a rally in Wilmington to celebrate committments by local companies to create more than 400 jobs there.

The rally will start about 1 p.m. Thursday at Southern State Community College’s North Campus, 1850 Davids Drive.

Since late 2012, the city has secured pledges of nearly 378 new jobs, from Polaris, DealerTrack Inc., Praxair Distribution Inc. and Custom Molded Products LLC. Airborne Maintenance and Engineering Services has said it will hire an additional 259 workers in the next 15 or so months and is building a $15 million repair hangar at Wilmington Air Park.

Executives from JobsOhio, the state’s private-public development arm, Air Transport International, Custom Molded Products, Polaris Industries, Praxair and TimberTech are expected to be at the event Thursday, according to an advisory from the governor’s office. Local leaders are also expected to be on hand.

When DHL closed its U.S. freight hub in Wilmington four years ago, Wilmington, a city of 42,000 residents, lost more than 8,000 jobs.

But city and business leaders told the Dayton Daily News in April that Wilmington is slowly and quietly rebuilding.

Brady Templeton, president of Airborne Maintenance and Engineering Services, told the newspaper then that when his company started in May 2009 it had fewer than 300 employees. Today, he has more than 600, and he says he has “just started” on the hiring of the 259 new workers.

“I’ve been here more than 20 years, and I think we were all certainly distracted by the DHL decision,” Templeton said in April. “But you get through it. You persevere.”

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