The Iowa Department of Economic Development and its board approved state aid of 90-million dollars for 11 projects across the state today. D-E-D director Michael Blouin says the state investment will help create 11-hundred jobs with an average salary of 37-thousand dollars. Blouin says a two-million dollar award to N-S-K Corporation of Clarinda, will let them create 150 jobs and retain 373 by remodeling and installing new machinery and equipment for the production of parts for the automotive industry. Other money is going to a eastern Iowa company. Packaging Technologies will 20 jobs to Davenport from Florida at starting wages of 18-dollars and 70 cents and hour. InfoUSA will create 64 new jobs in Carter Lake at an average wage of 19-dollars and 62-cents an hour. Blouin says Sho-Me Container in Grinnell won 200-thousand dollars for a unique manufacturing process using corn resins. They’ll make a milk container for a company in Clarinda called Naturally Iowa Milk Products. The new production helps retain eight jobs at Sho-Me’s Grinnell plant. Blouin says the Sho-me project is exciting. He says they’re are creating “value added” ag that will create a container no longer made from plastic that will degrade some 60 to 90 days after it’s thrown away. Cambridge Investment Research, Incorporated in Fairfield won 150-thousand dollars in state funds and tax benefits to help it expand and create 93 jobs. Blouin says new jobs and business expansion has a “ripple” effect on the communities involved. He says it’s hard to give an accurate assessment of how much the dollars turn over, so he says they just talk about the raw dollars. But he says there’s no question there’s money spent on construction and people with new jobs spending money that goes into a community.
