(The Center Square) – Geobrugg is receiving taxpayer funding as it expands operations in New Mexico.
The fence and safety protection manufacturer will receive $500,000 from the state’s Local Economic Development Act job-creation fund as it adds 60 jobs and expands its manufacturing plant at its Sandoval County location. The company will receive the funding as it achieves various economic development benchmarks, according to a press release from the New Mexico Economic Development Department.
Geobrugg will invest $8.8 million in the New Mexico project. The company moved to Algodones from Santa Fe in 2011 and expanded in 2018. It has a 25,000-square-foot facility that it has outgrown and purchased 13.5 acres to create more space for offices and a manufacturing capacity in the state.
The company started by making wire rope nets to protect against avalanches in Switzerland in 1951. Since then, it has expanded to make equipment to protect against various natural hazards across the world, including rockfall and slope stabilization, landslides, and debris flows, plus materials to mitigate the hazards of mining, tunnels, pipelines, underwater harbors, aviation operations, and construction.
More recently, it has produced safety protection for motor sporting events, including Formula 1. Tracks must use homologated fencing like Geobrugg makes. It recently made the fencing for a Formula 1 race in Miami and an Independence Day NASCAR event in Chicago.
“Geobrugg has identified its New Mexico location as a strategic hub in its global operations,” New Mexico Economic Development Department Deputy Secretary Jon Clark said. “The interstate system, our workforce, and New Mexico’s business climate is driving manufacturing growth in the state. Geobrugg and other companies are seeing these advantages and choosing New Mexico to expand operations.”
Andrea Roth, CEO of Geobrugg Group, said the expansion will help the company meet consumer needs.
“North America is a key market for Geobrugg products to protect people and infrastructure from geohazards,” Roth said. “For decades, Geobrugg has been committed to produce its solutions directly in the United States with our manufacturing hub in New Mexico. The planned expansion in Sandoval County will give us the potential to meet the growing demand in the market and offer possibilities for other products from the BRUGG Group, such as EV charging cables or wire ropes for cable cars.”
The company’s expansion will include a new 20,000-square-foot factory building to boost production capacity and 4,195 square feet of office space.
Geobrugg will break ground this month and is expected to complete this project by the end of the year. The company currently operates five days per week, three shifts per day, spanning 24 hours per day.
“Geobrugg North America has grown to over 100 employees in four years and will continue to have a major economic impact on Sandoval County,” Katherine Bruch, District 1 Sandoval County Commissioner, said.
Not only will Geobrugg’s expansion allow it to keep pace with manufacturing demand, but it will also help expand eConnect, its sister company. eConnect makes direct current fast-charging system solutions used by electric vehicle charging stations.
Currently, eConnect has no facilities in the United States, only in Poland and Switzerland.
