Governor Hutchinson visits NAC & Pace in final Harrison stop as governor

Governor Hutchinson said a facility like this on our college campuses was his dream when he became governor.

Governor Asa Hutchinson joined members of local government and business leaders in two events on Monday. The first was to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new Center for Robotics Manufacturing & Innovation (CRMI) at North Arkansas College, a 32,000 square foot, $8 million facility.

The facility will be offered to manufacturers as a place to develop new manufacturing processes and production lines without having to shut down portions of their own facilities.

“We can’t afford for our industry to keep shutting down to try new things. We can’t tell them to improve but shut down and lose revenue while you’re doing it,” Dr. Rick Massengale, President of North Arkansas College said.

In addition, the facility will be devoted to teaching students the latest in robotics.

“Eight years ago, when I got elected I wanted to be the jobs governor,” Hutchinson said, “Well you can’t be the jobs governor if you’re not creating a pathway for training for our workforce. We put this as a priority, I made this a priority, and I could not resist but to be here today for this groundbreaking because this was my dream. That we would have this kind of center in our college campuses, our two-year college campuses that partners with our high schools to train our young people to work.”

Harrison Mayor Jerry Jackson was also on hand to read a proclamation to make December 5, 2022 “Workforce Development Day.”

From Northark the Governor went on a tour of a portion of Pace Industries who recently announced they are bringing new lines of work to their Harrison facility, mainly diecasting for Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

Jason Allen, President of Pace Industries, said that in six months they will have four new programs that will add 50 new jobs to the Harrison plant. The four programs include diecasting parts for Tremec, a manufacturer of parts for Corvette transmissions; FCC, a current customer of Pace that is growing their production in Harrison to provide parts for clutches in many ten-speed platforms for General Motors; and Harley-Davidson, who now uses Pace Industries in Harrison for a major portion of their engine diecasting.

Governor Hutchinson highlighted the possibility of Pace Industries playing a role in attracting an automobile manufacturer to the state.

“When they [Pace} are in the supply chain of the automobile industry then we can say [to automobile manufacturers] you’re supply chain will be much easier here if you come to Arkansas,” Hutchinson said.

The event concluded with Mayor Jackson presenting a check to Pace Industries for $100,000 from an economic development grant Pace applied for through the City of Harrison which is funded by a portion of the half cent sales tax voters passed in 2021.