Keeping Goodyear

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: June 29, 2008

Local leaders have long worried about the future of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s Danville plant. Not only is Goodyear the city’s largest private employer, but it’s one of the best paying companies in the region.

As the Dan River Region struggled to overcome the loss of relatively low-paying tobacco and textile jobs, it could not afford to lose those 2,400 Goodyear jobs.

Now it won’t have to.

On Friday, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced the result of years of effort on the part of city and state officials to keep Goodyear in the Dan River Region. The company will invest $200 million in the Danville plant, which is currently the world’s largest maker of aircraft tires and medium radial truck tires.

“This project not only represents the confidence we have in our Danville plant to continue to perform at the highest levels,” Goodyear’s Richard J. Kramer, president of North American Tire, said in a news release, “this investment represents the faith we have in our Danville employees and the support we have enjoyed from the commonwealth and the city of Danville.”

Goodyear came to the Dan River Region in 1966 and the plant has been expanded 19 times since. But as the equipment aged and more of the work force approached retirement age, the concern was that the Goodyear plant would one day be closed.

From the outside looking in, it was impossible to know how Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear thought of the Danville plant and its workers. But given the economic shockwaves from the loss of tobacco and textile jobs, the city couldn’t afford to lose Goodyear.

Several years ago, the city included the sprawling Goodyear plant in its Enterprise Zone, and for the past three years, there have been active efforts underway to keep Goodyear in Danville.

“As an enduring corporate citizen for nearly four decades, Goodyear has continued to be a premier employer and today we hope to ensure Goodyear’s future for another 40 years,” retiring City Manager Jerry Gwaltney said in a news release. “An announcement of this magnitude demonstrates that manufacturing is alive and well in Southern Virginia and Danville is at its epicenter.”

That had no chance of happening if the community continued to bleed jobs. But as the 7,000 new jobs created over the past four years continue to be filled — and as important local industries such as Goodyear continue to grow, the region’s future looks bright.

The community must hold onto its existing businesses and industries as it continues to search for more. That’s why modernizing Danville’s Goodyear plant is some of the best economic development news this community has ever received.