GREENSBORO, NC – JULY 19, 2024 – The homegrown Greensboro company Core Technology Molding Corporation, a plastic injection molding company born as an MBA semester project, is about to fledge from its nest at the Gateway Research Park for a home of its own.
Greensboro City Council on Tuesday approved an economic-development incentive package for the company worth up to $520,407. It’s conditioned on Core Technology keeping its present workforce of about 52 plus creating 26 new jobs through 2029 and making a total capital investment of $27.85 million.
Core Technology is considering a site on Millstream Road. The county notice said the company is considering a site in the Millstream Industrial Park, which is along Interstate 40/85.
However, Foster, in brief remarks to the council Tuesday, was clearly leaning toward staying. He thanked the city and Greensboro Chamber of Commerce for supporting the company in its 18 years, noting it’s able to ship to 150 countries.
The move to the Greensboro site would allow Core Technology to consolidate operations under one roof and operate more efficiently, while offering career-track jobs in robotics and other advanced STEM fields, Foster said.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan and council members also heaped praise on Foster and the company, noting its Greensboro roots.
“I think he has a Fortune 500 company. If it isn’t already, it will be,” councilwoman Sharon Hightower said
While not yet a Fortune 500 company, Core Technology has been a frequent name on the Business Journal’s annual Fast 50 list of fastest-growing Triad companies, reflecting dollar and percentage growth. It is also one of the largest minority-owned businesses in Triad, and if it grows to 78 jobs, it would become the largest Black-owned business in Greensboro.
Core Technology and Foster have won recognition for work exposing young people to potential science, technology, engineering and math careers, such as through its nonprofit arm Molding Kids for Success, which has a summer STEM camp for youth.
Foster conceived of the business as a project for an entrepreneurship class during his final semester in graduate business school at Wake Forest University. Foster had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from N.C. A&T State University and had been working in various engineering roles.
The company has registered triple-digit growth in the past few years as it has found success in an array of sectors, but primarily in pharmaceuticals and automotive.
A turning point came when it got tier-one supplier status with BMW in 2015, Foster said in an interview with Triad Business Journal. It made a part for vehicles assembled at the German company’s U.S. assembly plant near Greer in upstate South Carolina.
Foster put it this way: BMW recommended Core Technology across markets to drugmaker Merck, who recommended the company to Pfizer, and then to Volvo Group, whose North American base for Volvo Trucks and Mack Trucks is in Guilford County.
“And I think when we hit tier one status, it didn’t matter if it was automotive, pharmaceutical, appliance, semiconductor — when you get to that status, it gets people’s attention that you’re able to deliver on time,” Foster said. “In 2015 when we were able to hit that, I started to realize that I think we’ve got something.”
Automation has been key, Foster said.
“We’re able to compete with China, India, Mexico, where some of our competitors, they either can’t make the investment, the automation is expensive, … or won’t make it, but they can’t compete, and that’s why they can’t get to this tier one status.”
For a while, automotive made up about two-thirds of the company’s business, but now biopharmaceuticals account for about 65% of business, Foster said. It helps to be relatively close to Research Triangle Park and its many drug-development and manufacturing companies, Foster noted.
The company has been asked many times to relocate near some of its major customers, from Alabama to South Carolina, but Foster said Greensboro has a special appeal. He remains an adjunct engineering faculty member at N.C. A&T, which offers ready access to a pipeline of vital new talent.
“I get to cherry pick the best engineers out of that school,” Foster said. “Having that relationship with the largest HBCU in the country, having that relationship and able to teach on campus, recruit, I wouldn’t give that up. It’d be hard to replicate that in Charleston. I don’t know anybody there, and there’s just so much talent in Greensboro on that campus.”
Core Technology is leaving a space of about 30,000 square feet, but which can have a second story added to double it, Gateway center Executive Director Paul Meyer told TBJ.
“The great news is we have a manufacturing space that somebody might very well be interested in locating on our campus. And given everything that’s taking place in the Carolina Core, we’re thinking that there’ll be a fair amount of interest.”
As for Core Technology leaving, “That’s a great success and a testament to the power of partnership with these universities, and certainly with Gateway itself, and so we’re excited for Core Technologies taking the next step.”
SOURCE: Triad Business Journal
Article Written By David Hill – Reporter, Triad Business Journal