HICKORY, N.C. — A fiber-optic components maker that has grown up in Catawba County is betting nearly $150 million on its hometown. US Conec will hire 224 more workers and spend $149.7 million on a new production facility in Hickory, state officials said Thursday.
The company builds the tiny, high-density connectors that link fiber cables inside data centers, enterprise networks, telecom systems and military equipment. Demand for those parts has climbed with the national build-out of advanced computing, and the new space is meant to add the capacity US Conec needs to keep up.
Construction is already underway on the shell the company will fill: a 221,000-square-foot structure in Fairgrove Business Park, at the Catawba Commerce Center site. US Conec plans to use it for production, research, offices and shipping. City officials said the company will also keep its roughly 300 current local jobs, and the expansion and hiring should wrap up by the end of 2030.
Pay for the new engineering, technician, operator and support jobs will vary, but the state put the average salary at $56,982, a little above the Catawba County average of $56,937. Together the new jobs could add more than $12.7 million a year in payroll to the region.
The state is backing the project with a $500,000 performance-based grant from the One North Carolina Fund. Under that program, the company gets nothing up front and is paid only after it meets its hiring and investment targets, and local governments must put up matching money.
Those local incentives still have to be approved. City and county leaders plan public hearings on those deals in mid-November. Separately, US Conec is pressing ahead on a smaller 40,000-square-foot building in the same park and a new headquarters in downtown Hickory.
Gov. Josh Stein said in the announcement that the decision reflects the strength of North Carolina manufacturing and its workforce. The company was founded in Hickory in 1992.
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