Allegheny Technologies' titanium plant in Rowley won't be operational until the end of this year, but the company has already won an award just for committing to start up the facility.

On Wednesday, Jason Perry, executive director of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, presented the company with Trade & Industry Development magazine's Community Impact Award in recognition of the future impact Allegheny will have on workforce and community economic development in Tooele County.

The national award is presented to recognize corporate investments in specific communities, as well as the economic developers responsible for securing those investments. This is the third year the award has been presented, and the honor is given based on a nationwide review done by Trade & Industry Development, which focuses on new corporate expansion projects that have a positive economic impact on both the local community and state.

"Trade & Industry magazine goes out each year and awards what are called CiCi awards," which actually include two separate awards that stand for community impact and corporate investment," said Perry. "This year there were 15 Community Impact Awards and 16 Corporate Investment Awards given out. The state of Utah has been fortunate enough to receive two of those awards, one for community impact and one for community investment. We're proud that the community impact award has been given to Allegheny Technologies. The Corporate Investment Award will be given to Procter & Gamble during their groundbreaking in Box Elder County May 30."

Perry presented the award to Allegheny Technologies Wah Chang President Lynn Davis at the Tooele County Courthouse building, with representatives from both Tooele City and County in attendance. ATI Wah Chang, a subsidiary of Allegheny Technologies, creates specialty metals and chemicals at plants in Oregon and Alabama.

"I think that this facility and the community here will work well together," Davis said. "I think Tooele County has a great community, and I'm happy that this project has received a lot of support from both the county and state. We hope this will lead to even bigger and better things in Tooele County."

The Community Impact Award also commends a company for its economic commitment to a community.

"This award is significant because it's awarded to a company in the United States that people know will have a significant impact on the community," Perry said. "Analysis goes into the company's impact on the workforce, as well as its impact on the community at large. They take into consideration things like if the company will be training employees, giving a comparative wage to those employees, and impacting the community in other ways. Allegheny is one of those companies that is truly deserving of this award."

The award presentation also marked the one-year anniversary of the Rowley plant's groundbreaking, which occurred on May 30, 2007. A slideshow representing the plant's progress over the past year was shown after the award was given.

Stephen Knight, who was named general manager for the plant in April, said hiring for the facility has been moving along steadily. About 90 percent of the workforce so far has been hired on locally, and some of the key hirings have included a procurement manager, network technician and human resources generalist.

"Right now, we're at Phase 2 [out of four phases] in our staffing process, which means we're focusing on hiring technical and managerial personnel," Knight said. "We're also trying to get maintenance, operating and administration set up. Later in the year we'll start hiring folks to work in production and operations."

Davis said construction has also been moving along nicely on the facility's nine buildings. Some of these buildings will include operations in reduction, administration, shipping and receiving, water purification and sponge storage.

"Three of the main buildings are already up, and right now they are topping concrete slabs for the reduction building," Davis said. "To date, we have had about 320,000 man hours of labor put into the plant. The current construction population out there is 125, and we predict that there will be as many as 500 contractors out at the site in September."

The under-construction Allegheny Technologies plant in Rowley was first announced in June 2006, and is expected to be producing titanium sponge by the end of 2008. At full production, the facility is expected to produce 24 million pounds of sponge annually.

dougrad@tooeletranscript.com