GUNMAKERS SET SIGHTS ON TENNESSEE

Second firearm maker relocates factory to Tennessee SCCY brings 350 jobs, headquarters to Blount County

MARYVILLE — For the second time in the past year, a gun manufacturer is moving its production plant to Tennessee.

Handgun maker SCCY Industries announced Wednesday it will move its factory and headquarters from Daytona Beach, Fla., to a new, 68-acre campus in Maryville’s Big Springs Industrial Park. The $22.5 million investment is projected to create a minimum of 350 jobs in Blount County over five years.

Joe Roebuck, founder and CEO of SCCY, said his company employs about 200 in his Florida factory, but plans to move only “a few key people,” maybe half a dozen, to Tennessee as he gradually shuts down the Daytona Beach facility, he said.

“When we say we’re going to employ 350 people, that’s very conservative,” he said.

Roebuck said he plans to move about $10 million in equipment in stages to Maryville.

The announcement of SCCY coming to Tennessee comes a year after Italian gun maker Beretta relocated its U.S. factory from Accookeek, Md., to Gallatin, Tenn., where the company built a 160,000-square-foot factory. Beretta hopes to grow its $45 million manufacturing facility in Middle Tennessee to eventually employ 300 workers.

Roebuck and company President Wayne Holt came to the Blount Partnership office for the Wednesday afternoon announcement, along with state and local officials.

Gov. Bill Haslam, who has previously touted “Tennessee’s great pride in the Second Amendment,” said the state is also known for manufacturing excellence.

“Our skilled workforce is known for producing some of the world’s best-known products and brands,” he said. “I’m pleased that SCCY has chosen to join the growing roster of manufacturing companies calling Tennessee home.”

SCCY is expected to receive state, local and TVA incentives for its new Maryville factory, although details of any tax breaks and incentives were not immediately available.

Roebuck said he hopes to start construction on a 75,000-square-foot

plant late this year or early next, and begin production in mid- to late-2018. Initially it will have about 200 employees, hired locally, and SCCY will add 50 to 60 people per year for the following three years, he said.

“Anything from office work to machine operator all the way up to high level administrator,” will be hired, Roebuck said. He also intends to start a paid, four-year apprenticeship program.

Roebuck plans a campus of five industrial buildings, plus a “sky lodge” to house visiting industry leaders and gun writers, with an outdoor shooting range, he said.

Roebuck said he got into gunmaking when, as a tool and die maker, he made equipment for another gun company which went out of business. After studying the market for a year, he opened his own, aiming for a high-quality mid-market handgun. Starting with no employees in 2003, he built up to 200 workers in Florida, but had no room to expand, he said.

He also doesn’t consider Florida a “manufacturing state,” but said he believes Tennessee is.

Holt, likewise, said SCCY is looking for “intelligent and industrious people,” which he found lacking in the Florida workforce. The company looked all over the Southeast for a new location before settling on Blount County, Holt said.

After its move and expansion, SCCY will begin making two additional series of handguns, and so will have products in lower, middle and upper price ranges, Holt said.

The company is probably the fastest growing semiautomatic handgun maker in the country and focuses on providing high quality, he said.

The firearms industry is one of the top types of companies Blount County seeks to recruit, said Bryan Daniels, Blount Partnership president and CEO.

Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell said he’s a “satisfied customer” of SCCY, and testified to the gun’s quality.

Roebuck said SCCY offers a “perpetual warranty” on its products — which stays with the gun, not the first owner. For example, he said, one customer dropped his SCCY handgun in a lake while fishing, who later retrieved it when the lake was drained, and SCCY replaced the pistol for free.