Massachusetts Green Bubble Alert:
TPI Composites
Tillotson Complex at 63 Water Street Fairhaven
TPI Composites Director is Director of First Wind, Patrick Wood III.
First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor is Massachusetts Deval Patrick's appointed green policy Advisor.
TPI Composites’ Statement On Award of More than $9 Million In Recovery Act Manufacturing Tax Credits from the Obama Administration. http://www.tpicomposites.com/press-room/press-releases/tpi-composites%E2%80%99-statement-on-award.aspx
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) has awarded TPI a $250,000 grant contingent upon creating and maintaining 30 jobs.http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/20936
“After all, TPI Composites has also received accolades from Barney Frank, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and President Obama. Iowa companies have received more than $160 million in Department of Energy stimulus grants. How unfortunate that some Republican contenders chose to endorse more of the same instead of taking the opportunity to explain the senselessness of such a system. One would think that the Iowa Straw Poll would have been the optimal event to explain the free market perspective rather than acquiesce to the demands for more corporate welfare…”
http://biggovernment.com/jgriffith/2011/08/25/wasserman-schultz-and-romney-agree-we-should-pander-to-iowa-caucus-voters-with-corporate-welfare/#comments
On the promise of jobs to his district, in 2005 Congressman Dave Hobson (7th District, Ohio), secured a $4.5 million earmark for TPI Composites to develop an Army vehicle similar to the Humvee, but with lighter materials. Lobbyist Juliet Pacquing collected $60,000 from TPI Composites. Her husband, Kevin Cook was Hobson’s top staffer for the House Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water. For nearly seven months after the Springfield (OH) plant closed in March 2009, Mr. Hobson and his successor, Steve Austria, took credit for up to 100 jobs at that facility. That claim may have helped Mr. Hobson and Mr. Austria raise campaign cash, but if those jobs exist at all they now do so at TPI Composites facilities in China, Mexico, Rhode Island or Iowa. (Sources: Springfield News Sun, Mar 18, 2009, and USA Today, October 16, 2006). Regardless of the success of the Humvee upgrade program, there is a strong argument that the $4.5 million earmark to TPI Composites was purely political and fraught with inefficiencies, not the least of which is the recurring overhead on a vacant production facility at 2145 Airpark Drive in Springfield subsidized by the U.S taxpayer.
http://greeneherald.com/article/open-letter-secretary-ashton-carter
November, 2006: TPI Composites opens Springfield production facility;
April 10, 2007: TPI Composites triples wind blade production capacity in Mexico plant;
April 12, 2007: TPI Composites reaches agreement to manufacture wind blades in China;
May 7, 2007: TPI Composites unveils first all-composite Army-ready truck cab in Warren, R.I.;
October 29, 2007: TPI Composites opens second wind blade plant in Mexico;
November 26, 2007: TPI Composites expands capacity in Iowa facility;
December 17, 2007: TPI Composites opens holding company in Scottsdale, Arizona;
September 16, 2008: TPI Composites opens 316,000 square foot plant in Newton, Iowa;
February 2009: TPI Composites closes Springfield operation;
October 2009: Eight months after the plant closed, Steve Austria removes from his website his claim that he brought up to 100 jobs to the TPI Composites facility at 2145 Airpark Drive in Springfield.
http://xeniacitizenjournal.wordpress.com/tag/against-government-corruption/
Newton Independent RE: TPI Composites
In November 2008, just a month after the plant's grand opening, Opus Northwest, the developer and contractor on the project, sold its interest in the facility to Blue Dog TPI Properties LLC out of the Boston area, documents on the county assessor's Web site indicate. The sale price was $14.35 million, just slightly more than the $13.5 million minimum assessment on the facility. http://www.newtonindependent.com/newton_independent/2010/05/tpi-announces-more-layoffs-at-newton-wind-blade-plant.html
*But, I've checked the http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchInput.asp and can't find Blue Dog TPI Properties LLC out of Boston area that was referenced this May 2012 Newton Independent about TPI Composites.
Jasper County Iowa Assessor's sites shows that on Feb. 10, 2012 Blue Dog sold the property to Sir Properties Trust in some sort of reorganization. The link is attached below. http://jasper.iowaassessors.com/sale.php?st=com&gid=15972&sid=3517
*Iowa Secretary of State's site visits shows no Sir Properties Trust listed as an Iowa corporation.
*I did find that Blue Dog TPI Properties had its existence revocated in 2010 for failing to file its bienniel report.
http://sos.iowa.gov/search/business/(S(d1g1lgynry42znrkqh4azzjx))/filings.aspx
*TPI Composites testified in front of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Stimulus benefits, March 27, 2012:
http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ragan%20Testimony%20Senate%20Energy%20Subcomm%2003-27-12_final1.pdf
*But they didn't mention their Turkish plans announced by TPI on March 21, 2012:
"TPI Composites, Inc and ALKE INSAAT have formed a joint venture company in Izmir, Turkey to manufacture large composite wind turbine blades."
http://www.compositestoday.com/2012/03/tpi-composites-and-alke-announce-wind-blade-joint-venture-in-turkey/
*TPI testified before the Senate Subcommittee prior to this rounds of layoffs
http://www.newtonindependent.com/newton_independent/2010/05/newton-mayor-issues-statement-over-tpi-layoffs.html, .
May 19, 2010
TPI announces more layoffs at Newton wind blade plant
By PETER HUSSMANN
TPI Composites in Newton is reducing its workforce again, just weeks after laying off an unstated number of employees and now bringing total employment to less than half of the 500 employees working at the wind blade plant just four months ago.
Read more Iowa news on TPI, here, http://www.newtonindependent.com/newton_independent/2010/05/tpi-announces-more-layoffs-at-newton-wind-blade-plant.html
Desmoines Register
May 24, 2012
NEWTON, Ia. – The factory floor here where President Obama will give a speech on wind energy this afternoon is already filling up with people, and is ringed with all the accoutrements of the new manufacturing economy that he’s championing.
The place is TPI Composites, a manufacturing company that makes the power-generating wind turbines that dot much of the northern Iowa landscape.
Behind the raised platform where Obama is to speak at approximately 4:15 are six massive wind turbine blades set in a row, their hollow circular ends, perhaps eight feet tall, facing the crowd. Above them are American and Iowa flags suspended from the corrugated metal ceiling. The long sweep of another turbine blade forms a wall behind a row of bleachers. Above it is a presidential slogan: “An America built to last.”
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http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/05/24/on-the-scene-president-obamas-event-in-newton/
Obama visits TPI Composites plant in Iowa
Phoenix Business Journal by Patrick O'Grady, Reporter
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2012, 8:43pm MST - Last Modified: Thursday, May 24, 2012, 9:24pm MST
Steve Lockard
- Reporter- Phoenix Business Journal
President Barack Obama spent time on Thursday pitching for renewable energy in Iowa, visiting a Scottsdale-based company's wind blade manufacturing facility that supplies power and jobs throughout the Midwest.
TPI Composites Inc. was the backdrop for Obama’s speech on renewables that focused on extending the production tax credit, which pays wind farms for based on how much energy they produce.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2012/05/24/obama-visits-tpi-composites-plant-in.html
Wall Street Journal
Wind power
By Editorial Board, Published: June 3, 2012 (TPI Composites is the Newton Iowa factory)
PRESIDENT OBAMA recently visited a factory in Newton, Iowa, that builds wind-turbine blades, contrasting the industry of the past — Maytag left the town in 2007 — with a vision of a future with middle-class green manufacturing jobs. Who could be against that?
One problem: According to Mr. Obama, that future apparently requires a clumsy array of expensive federal subsidies. The wind production tax credit (PTC) devotes more than $1 billion a year to support wind-power projects, rewarding them for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they generate, not for providing electricity inexpensively or devising cheaper ways to operate. But the president has nevertheless put reauthorizing the tax credit, which expires at year’s end, on his “to-do list” for Congress. In Newton, Mr. Obama pointed to the progress in renewable energy sources; their use has nearly doubled since 2008. The government, he argued, should not imperil such progress by cutting off the subsidy spigot.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/wind-power/2012/06/03/gJQAOEB1BV_story.html
I welcome TPI Composites to Massachusetts, where they become part of our growing wind energy industry," said Governor Patrick. "With facilities like the Wind Technology Testing Center and companies like TPI, Massachusetts will lead the nation in the next generation of wind energy technology."
To support this facility, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) has awarded TPI a $250,000 grant, contingent upon creating and maintaining 30 jobs. The facility, located at the Tillotson Complex at 63 Water Street, is expected to open in early 2011 and will initially employ 30 to 50 associates. Neil Tillotson, who the complex is named for, was one of TPI’s initial investors in 1968. TPI built recreational boats in the building during the 1970s and 1980s.
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http://www.tpicomposites.com/press-room/press-releases/governor-deval-.aspx