MIDLAND – Dow Chemical Co. will add 200 jobs in a new “innovation center” in Midland, the chemical giant’s CEO announced this week. Of the jobs, 100 will be new, and 100 will be relocated from other Dow offices.
Dow officials say the exact size and location of the building, as well as its cost, are not yet known.
“We’re in the very early stages of developing specific plans and timelines for the center and will share more information when appropriate,” Rachelle Schikorra, associate director of public affairs at Dow Chemical, said in an email.
Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris noted that the innovation center “could have been located anywhere in the world,” Dow CEO Andrew Liveris said. “We chose Michigan, our home for more than 119 years, because of the highly skilled workforce in the state and because we believe the incoming presidential administration understands the importance of R&D investment and its multiplier impact on U.S. manufacturing jobs.”
Liveris announced the new center in a Grand Rapids event with President-Elect Donald J. Trump.
The new Dow innovation center will be focused on combining existing chemistries with new technologies derived from its recent acquisition of the silicones business of Dow Corning Corp. It also helps offset the loss of some 700 jobs in the Great Lakes Bay region that will be cut as part of its merger with DuPont.
The center will house scientists and engineers who will focus R&D on advancing technologies for home and personal care products, enhancing Dow’s energy-saving building technologies, advancing materials for infrastructure, and driving closer partnerships with automakers, as they continue to build lighter, higher-mileage vehicles.
Dow said that in the past 10 years, Dow and its regional development partners have driven more than $400 million of investment and downtown economic redevelopment in the Great Lakes Bay Region, home to the company and nearly 13,000 employees and contractors. Investments include nearly a billion square feet of real estate, including a new global headquarters scheduled to open in 2017; a new regional airport; a new hotel and other accommodations; new STEM schools that are developing the next generation of chemists, biologists, and physicists; and more.
This story appeared in ESD’s Technology Century Edited by Matt Roush.
