'There’s a lot of opportunity': A company expansion provides over 160 new jobs

The Fouts Bros. company also plans to spend $3.4 million to upgrade the former Rheems plant

Fouts Brothers Incorporated have been in Milledgeville since 2019. Before then, Johnathan Jackson of the Development Authority in Milledgeville and Baldwin County said the building was vacant and hundreds of jobs were lost.

"This was a former Rheem manufacturing facility and when they departed 900 jobs went with them, but now we’re slowly rebuilding that and it makes me excited to think that so many people now have the opportunity raise their families and contribute to the community of Baldwin County.”

The rebuilding is coming over a two-year expansion. Fouts Brothers will bring 96 jobs in 2023 and 70 more in 2024. CEO Scott Edens said the expansion comes from demand from customers and Fouts Brothers want to do more.

"We decided to go ahead and expand our own product line and that's what we launched this year in July, so we opened up this section about 150,000 square feet with an additional $3.5 million investment, and we will by the end of the year be producing six fire trucks per week off of these production lines," Edens said.

The space is what caught their eye, he said, but the community is why they stay.

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