SINTON, Texas — With a round of applause and the snip of a large pair of scissors, JM Steel and Nextracker, a solar energy company, finalized their partnership, announcing a new manufacturing facility located on the Steel Dynamics campus in Sinton.
When someone thinks of Sinton, they might think of a small town, but that small town is already growing. JM Steel and Nextracker’s partnership brought 50 new jobs to Sinton.
“We’ve been able to significantly increase labor from the local labor pool and provide stable employment,” CEO and founder of Nextracker Dan Shugar said.
Shugar said they’re hoping to continue adding staff with additional shifts and JM Steel said they’re hoping to be at around 95 workers in the near future.
Shugar said out of the 50 new employees, they mostly hired locals. One of those locals is Amanda Perez from Odem who works for JM Steel.
She said in the past few years, she’s been seeing a lot of new opportunities because of new companies moving into the area.
“I wanted to find something close to home so it was just a good opportunity. This company is like a family so it really means a lot to me to be here,” Perez said.
However, some workers like Jake Henke moved from out of state. Henke moved from Alabama to continue his family’s legacy in the steel industry.
“We all kind of take a lot of passion in being third generation in the steel industry,” Henke said.
However, it’s not just employees benefiting from the partnership between JM Steel and Nextracker.
Cavalleri’s Kitchen in Sinton said they’ve been seeing more customers in the past three years because of companies like Steel Dynamics moving to Sinton.
They said their sales have increased almost 30 percent and they are seeing more customers every year.
“We correspond with SDI on a monthly basis and not only with SDI but like you (reporter Andrew Christiansen) said, the subsidiary companies out there,” owner Scott Sence said.
