Opening of General Tobacco is a Dream Realized

Source from:  Steve Lawson staff writer Monday, February 18, 2008 02/20/2008

As the wide-open space inside General Tobacco's manufacturing facility on Ayersville Road in Mayodan begins to fill with new, state-of-the-art cigarette production machinery, the smiles on the faces of people throughout the building are easy to spot. Electricians, mechanics and operators in the vast production area are no different than the executives, secretaries and accounting personnel in the corporate headquarters next door. All of them are happy to have a part in helping a longtime dream come to life before their eyes. "It's really exciting when I think about what this looked like just a few months ago and now to see it coming closer to completion every day," said J. Ronald Denman, GT's executive vice president and general counsel. Denman spent part of Wednesday morning monitoring tests of a new filter-making machine in the production plant. Nearby, mechanics were making final adjustments to equipment that would soon turn out thousands of cigarettes a minute. Shaking his head in amazement, Denman admitted he always wondered how people came up with the ideas that evolved into the intricate Hauni and Focke machines lining GT's new production floor. "The way these machines work has always astonished me," he said. "I know it could never have been me, but I'm glad someone had the imagination to design them." Looking around the room, Denman points out another person he finds amazing - Vidal Suriel, the founder and president of General Tobacco. Denman said it was Suriel's drive and determination that moved GT from a startup company to the sixth largest tobacco company in the United States in fewer than 10 years. "The most unique thing about this company is the way it has grown through the dream of one man," Denman said. Suriel came to the U.S. about 20 years ago with hardly more than the clothes on his back, according to Denman. He started working in a grocery store and saved up enough to open his own convenience store. Denman said Suriel was putting in 20-hour days and saving everything he could to keep his business growing. "He would sell one store and buy another larger one," he said. "Before long, he owned a large grocery store." But tragedy struck in 1997, when Suriel's store burned to the ground. Even that appeared to have a bit of a silver lining though, especially for Denman. "That's when I first met Vidal," he said. "He came to me as his lawyer." It was during this time that Suriel joined forces with some friends to sell cigarettes. Denman said Suriel became intrigued with the business and began making plans to start his own business. Suriel founded General Tobacco in 1997 and launched his first brand, GT One, in 2000. "Those first cigarettes came in, I think, from Greece, but Vidal was not happy with them," Denman said. Some friends put Suriel in contact with cigarette manufacturers in Columbia, and he found the better quality he sought. A second brand, Bronco, was introduced in 2001; Silver brand was unveiled in 2002. "By 2006, the company had developed a good market share and branched out with a brand of menthol cigarettes, 32 Degrees," Denman said. In fact, General Tobacco had grown to account for 2 percent of U.S. cigarette sales by 2004, making it the nation's sixth largest tobacco company. "That's a long way from those early days of putting excise stamps on packages in Vidal's garage," Denman said. "But that's the way things have always been for this company. Vidal's made sure we always kept that same 'mom-and-pop' business attitude no matter how much we grew." Although the family atmosphere the operation had in Miami continues in Mayodan, Denman admits there is a difficult side to that attitude. "The most difficult thing we've faced in this move is to see thousands of resumes come in for just over 100 jobs," he said. "That's something we never saw in Miami. It was sometimes tough to get two resumes for one job there." The availability of an experienced workforce was one of the deciding factors that brought the company to North Carolina. Denman said Suriel began working on a way to manufacture his own cigarettes less than two years ago. He narrowed the search to the major tobacco producing states of Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. "North Carolina and the local governments here were really aggressive in their dealings with us and this proved to be the most convenient location," Denman said. "And the Unifi buildings offered everything we could ask for in terms of quick turnaround to get our production facility up and running." When Suriel and Denman first saw their current location, the former Unifi Plant No. 5, it was filled from end to end with spinning machines, but they could see the potential. One of the most important factors in cigarette production is temperature and humidity control, and that was something the plant already had potential to provide. "One of the first things we did was construct a wall to separate the production area from the future tobacco processing area," Denman said. "The noise from these manufacturing machines is high, and we needed to isolate that area." The north side of the building was also isolated and prepared as the corporate headquarters area, housing offices for Suriel, Denman, other executives, as well as the accounting and customer service representatives. Denman said the first production line should be operational by the end of the month, something that really came as a surprise to him. "When we first decided to make the move here, we estimated we would be ready to start manufacturing our own cigarettes by about mid-February of this year," he said. "But to see it about to come about within a couple weeks of that first estimate is a real surprise. We couldn't have asked for better cooperation from everyone involved in making this all come to life." The move from Miami to Rockingham County proved to be far less traumatic than anyone with the company expected. "We'd only been here a short while when my wife asked me, 'Why didn't we do this years ago?'" said Denman. A viewpoint apparently shared by all of the GT corporate family making the move north. "Everyone has fallen in love with this region and this community," Denman said. "We only wish we were big enough to hire everyone that's applied." Hiring for General Tobacco is handled through the Rockingham County office of the Employment Security Commission in Wentworth. According to incentive agreements in place, GT will hire 120 production workers and 20 office personnel during this first phase of the operation, and 60 more production workers in phase two. The operation is scheduled to be in full production by the end of 2009. Enditem