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The newest company coming to the Port of Little Rock will fit right in here in Arkansas.
The headline on the recent announcement that the Faymonville Group of Luxembourg would be building its first U.S. production facility in Little Rock was the price tag on the $110 million project and the 500 local jobs that will come with it.
Those are outstanding developments for our local economy, but in the long run, I actually think the biggest get for central Arkansas is the Faymonville family — colloquially known along with its employees as “the Faymily” — which seems to become an integral part of the fabric in every place it takes its ultra-high-capacity trailer company.
I was fortunate to meet with the family while some of its members were here for the project’s announcement the last week of October. Were it not for their slight accents, you would have thought they represented a seventh-generation Arkansas company rather than one that originated as a blacksmith business in Belgium.
They talked about searching for a U.S. location all over the East Coast and Midwest, about being underwhelmed. Then — almost by a chance connection — they were introduced to Arkansas, a state they didn’t even know how to pronounce at the time.
But being a family-run company, Faymonville didn’t have a problem with at least giving the state a look. When the Faymonvilles did, they described being treated and pursued in a manner they’d never experienced before.
That’s a credit to our state and local economic developers. The Faymonvilles were particularly enthusiastic in their praise for Jack Thomas, the vice president of economic development at the Little Rock Regional Chamber and already a young star in the economic development world.
The company has more than 1,400 employees across four countries, but it remains truly family-run. This was demonstrated by the four company leaders who traveled to Arkansas a few weeks ago for the announcement. Yves and Alain Faymonville from the company’s board came, along with Anne and Lisa Faymonville, two of the younger members of the family who lead the manufacturer’s marketing and HR efforts, respectively.
The deal came together quickly. Faymonville first began looking at Little Rock in June, and by September, the framework for a deal was in place.
I look forward to watching this factory develop over several phases in the coming years, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see expansion even beyond the announced size and scope. That’s how Faymonville has engaged each of the other locales where it has stood up operations. And this facility in Little Rock will allow the company to get its feet even further in the door to the U.S. market.
I’d say Little Rock is lucky Faymonville’s feet landed here, but luck has nothing to do with it.
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