Sturtevant---A vanguard of several dozen Foxconn employees has temporarily moved into available, second-floor space at the SC Johnson iMET Technology Center, the Gateway Technical College owned and operated teaching facility that's located a half-mile from where the Taiwanese company is expected to build a huge display screen manufacturing plant.
The employees are project planners and logistics managers, according to Deb Davidson, the school's Vice-President of Workforce and Economic Development. "They're quite happy to be where they are," Davidson said. "They're integrating well with everybody at the iMET Center," she said.
The move into iMET was done on the Q-T because Foxconn has yet to officially name its chosen site, although a tract of land southwest of iMET is believed to be the likely location.
Davidson revealed the existence of the newcomers at a Gateway Board of Trustees meeting held at the Horizon Center in Kenosha Thursday morning.
iMET is where Gov. Walker on Monday signed the nearly three-billion dollar Foxconn incentives package.
At Thursday's meeting, the trustees gave tentative approval to a 50% expansion of iMET in order to accommodate Foxconn's training needs.
Expanding the building to the west will cost $5 million and be paid for by the state. Remodeling parts of the building and expanding the parking lot will cost $1.2 million, and be paid for by Gateway.
The state's share was tucked into the state Foxconn incentives package that was signed into law by Gov. Walker. The bill-signing occurred at iMET on Tuesday.
In the coming months and years, thousands of Foxconn employees are expected to be trained in a variety of skills at iMET. A mock assembly line is expected to be set up. The Foxconn manufacturing complex is expected to be as automated as they come.
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