DHi CEO Addresses Jones County Civic Boosters
Trenton, NC (Feb. 23, 2007)—Richard J. Martin, President and CEO of Defense Holdings, Inc. (DHi), addressed the annual meeting of the Jones County Committee of 100 and the its Economic Development Commission on Thursday evening, February 27 at the Civic Center in Trenton.
Mr. Martin provided the audience with an update on progress being made in preparation for the company’s new Operations and Technology Development Center (OTDC). The event was given considerable coverage by area media organizations.
Slated for completion in 2007, the OTDC will be built in Trenton and is still on track to open for business later this year. The facility will help create much-needed jobs for the local economy.
Mr. Martin updated the capacity audience on progress DHi has made in its metal fiber brush (MFB) and photoluminescent (PL) technologies, two areas that will eventually need space in the new building. He also indicated that DHi has recently stepped up efforts to introduce the company to military facilities in the vicinity.
Mr. Martin took the opportunity to thank the many people in both Jones County and North Carolina who have been instrumental in moving the OTDC project ahead. These included Joseph F. Wiggins and Sondra Ipock Riggs, chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the Jones County Commission, as well as commissioners Charles Battle, Jr., Mike Haddock, and Jessie Ray Eubanks; Charles Jones, chairman of the County Economic Development Commission; Luther Cox, president of the County Committee of 100; Horace Phillips and Thomas Walter who represented the Jones/Onslow Electric Membership Corporation; Al Delia, president of the NC Eastern Region and his staff; Don Stewart, president of the Neuse River Development Authority, Inc.; Donna Phillips, senior economic developer-NC Department of Commerce, Greenville Regional Office; and the board and staff of North Carolina’s Golden Leaf Foundation.
Mr. Martin also thanked county manager Larry P. Meadows, county attorney Jimmie B. Hicks, and clerk to the board Jennifer Stroud for their invaluable assistance, and gave a special hat tip to Roy Fogle, the county’s economic development consultant along with his secretary Carol Hood.
After reiterating some of the points he had made at the facility’s official groundbreaking festivities last fall, Mr. Martin expressed the company’s excitement that the project will be put out to bid shortly. He emphasized that, as in the company’s branch locations in Dover, NH and Annapolis, MD, DHi plans to put down local roots in Jones County and looks forward to becoming a local fixture in the community, helping to build a mutually beneficial relationship with the county as mutual “partners in progress.”
A proven provider of professional engineering services to the Federal government as well as the private sector, DHi was founded in 1994 in Manassas, Virginia, where it maintains its corporate headquarters. Historically, DHi has focused on high-end R&D engineering to support the Nation’s warfighters both here and abroad. More recently, the company broadened its Federal contract portfolio to include a significant number of additional agencies.
