ISA, a multinational rubber dipping factory, is relocating from Oregon to the Union Center Business Park in Evanston, Wyo.
Plans for the phased relocation include hiring more than 100 employees in Uinta County within five years.
Rocco O’Neill, the Director of Community and Economic Development for Evanston, said the recruitment of ISA has been several years in the making, but a few factors accelerated the process, including the more conservative political climate and the better tax structure in Wyoming.
“The pandemic happened right in the middle of coordinating ISA’s relocation,” O’Neill said. “At that time, everything in Oregon was shut down, but here in Wyoming, we were still pretty open and moving around freely. I think it was kind of an eye-opener that Wyoming doesn’t operate in the same way that the Pacific Northwest does.”
ISA has plans to build a larger 200,000 square-foot facility in the park to manufacture surgical gloves, O’Neill added. The company's target market is in DOD, DOE and other sub-agencies such as TSA, and they would like to take that business from foreign competitors.
The open space is a topic O’Neill always touches on in his conversations with companies considering locating in Evanston.
“We offer a great opportunity for companies to stay in business, employ people and maintain some sort of normalcy,” he said. “We’re also seeing and working to leverage a higher population of remote workers, which helps build a foundation for the larger tech sector.”
Evanston has spent 15 years reinvesting economic development funds from a 2005 Business Council project in the Union Center Business Park, including bringing in fiber.
Those incremental, continued investments not only allowed existing manufacturers in the park to expand their operations, but also led to the attraction of a noted manufacturer like ISA.
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