LOVELAND, Ohio (WKRC) - Wednesday brought some promising business news for the Tri-State and, really, the entire state of Ohio.
Loveland-based Workhorse Group is in talks with General Motors to buy the closed Lordstown plant outside Youngstown. That bit of news started with a tweet from President Donald Trump Wednesday morning.
They immediately crashed Workhorse's website and sent people scrambling -- from journalists to the governor to Loveland city leaders and, of course, the people at Workhorse.
The news crossed the Twitter-verse at 11:18 a.m. like a meteor crashing into our corner of the earth.
“Great news for Ohio!” Trump tweeted. “GM will be selling their beautiful Lordstown plant to Workhorse, where they plan to build electric trucks.”
When Trump tweets about your company, you know you're going to get some attention.
“Yeah,” said Rob Willison, Workhorse’s COO. “And we weren't anticipating that, so we're very happy with that."
The company employs about 100 people in Loveland and another 40 in Union City, Indiana. Loveland is headquarters, design, R&D and it’s where it manufactures the batteries for its flagship pickup trucks and UPS and DHL delivery trucks.
When Loveland's city manager got the news, he wasn't sure whether it was good or bad.
"Yes he did make me nervous,” said Loveland City Manager David Kennedy. “I would be lying to you if I told you it didn't make me nervous. Anytime we would lose a business, especially one that we’ve been partners with for approaching 10 years -- yes, it definitely made us nervous."
But when Local 12 asked Willison about moving from Loveland, he said, “We are in Loveland. We're staying here in Loveland. We have our main plant in Union City, and so this is part of our growth strategy."
Workhorse also confirmed that it's not planning to leave Union City, where it will continue to build its delivery trucks. If the deal goes through -- pending union, government, and corporate negotiations -- the Lordstown plant will build Workhorse's pickup trucks.
The governor and lieutenant governor quickly called a press conference to respond to the news.
"We will be as aggressive as we can be at making sure we play our role in smoothing the path for this new company and for the jobs it has the potential to create," said Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
And now that Loveland is assured it won't be losing jobs, it wouldn't mind if Workhorse didn't add a few more.
"I think it's great, and we actually would like to see them expand in our commerce park,” said Kennedy.
Willison said the company is actually planning to add some more jobs in Loveland by the end of the year -- perhaps a couple of dozen.
Trump's tweet wasn't entirely accurate. Workhorse is not actually buying the Lordstown plant; it is licensing its technology to a new company that is planning to buy the plant -- a new company that is yet to be named. But the new company will be owned in part by the founder of Workhorse.
Sen. Sherrod Brown remained cautiously optimistic about the news. He is questioning whether the new company will provide enough jobs to make up for the 4,500 workers GM laid off or displaced in Lordstown.
