Johnson City Chamber president shares reasons behind support of BWXT expansion

Two months ago, BWX Technologies received a vote of approval from the Washington County Commission for their rezoning request of 56 acres of land to expand their production. Though the commission's decision was met with concerns from residents, notably in Jonesborough, some figures at the March 23 meeting spoke in favor of the rezoning request – including Chief Executive Officer and President of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce Bob Cantler. Cantler said his support of the vote goes back to his knowledge of BWXT's staff and the "safety" of the company's operations. "From a business standpoint, I've been able to go behind the scenes at nuclear fuels," he said. "I know Ron Dailey…I know the personnel there, and they're our neighbors. Experiencing how they operate in Unicoi County, the safety protocols, the efficiencies, the security, anything they're going to do, there's not a large margin of error. I knew that they would do what they needed to do to be safe in the operations in Jonesborough." Cantler said his support of BWXT also comes from his own research on depleted uranium and how munitions have been made in Jonesborough for years. He added the safety precautions in BWXT's operations – for their team and the area they work in – aided in his backing to the vote, something many community members shared their concerns for. "Now, there were many people that were screaming and yelling, saying. 'Oh, this could happen, oh this could happen,'" Cantler said. "We couldn't predict Helene. You never know when that one unique moment happens, but I have a lot of confidence that their day-to-day operations are going to be safe and efficient. One, because it's the right thing to do, and two, they want their team to be safe. The last thing they need is to jepordize their funding with something that goes wrong in the community." Alongside his confidence in the safety side of the rezoning, Cantler said the amount of jobs BWXT will be creating holds a large impact for the region. He mentioned employees who had been let go from other companies, such as US Endodontics and JTEKT, could be retained in the region, while the addition of BWXT's 175 jobs are well-suited for people just beginning their careers. "It's a good opportunity for locals," Cantler said. "One, we had companies that were closing and we needed to retain [employees]. Two, I think it could attract people who are from the area to possibly come back, and three, it's [an opportunity for] those young folks that are coming out of our colleges and community colleges to have an organization they can go to work for, and make a good salary starting off." While Cantler said it's likely some of the jobs "may come in from outside the area," he believes a majority of the opportunities will be held by locals to East Tennessee. "They're going to need metal workers, they're going to need maintenance people, they're going to need accountants, they're going to need HR," he said. "There's going to be an opportunity for a lot of locals to get hired. And, they've done a pretty good job working with Northeast State, ETSU and Milligan to say, 'Okay, who's coming out? What's the bench strength coming out of the universities and community colleges that we can employ?'" Cantler added while he originally had his own concerns about the rezoning and expansion, his historic knowledge and research on the operations of the company are what pushed him to show his support of BWXT's request. "You always need to have a little pause to go, 'Is this the right thing, is it appropriate, are they doing what needs to be done to make sure it's as safe as possible?'" he said. "But, I have the luxury of having the history of understanding how that organization had worked before all this came up. I had the luxury of understanding how BWXT, how nuclear fuels, operates and how they work…so, it wasn't a long move for me to get from 'am I comfortable' to being comfortable." Cantler said businesses a part of the chamber have also had mixed reactions to the approval, especially with industrial businesses. "Any industrial group, when another industrial group comes in and says we're hiring a bunch of people, they get a little nervous because they're going, 'Hey, I don't want to lose our people,' regardless of who comes in," he said. However, Cantler said he hasn't heard concerns from other business leaders and shared he had the support of the chamber's board of directors when publicly voicing his support behind BWXT's request. "Our board of directors supported me standing up to say we support this project, we think it adds a lot of value to our community," Cantler said. "We've evaluated the risk factors and the safety protocols, and we don't have a problem endorsing this."