Kimber Mfg Inc., a leading U.S. firearms manufacturer, will invest $38 million to open a production facility in Troy, Alabama. The company plans to hire 366 associates the next five years.

Greg Grogan, Kimber’s COO, said the company will build a large, automated, state-of-the-art design engineering and manufacturing facility in Troy to support Kimber’s strategic growth plans.

“Troy offers us expansion with a passionate workforce, extraordinarily low utility costs, a pro-business environment, experienced local training support, and long-term incentives from the state and local government alike,” Grogan said. “This expansion in conjunction with our existing manufacturing facilities, talented and experienced employees, and best-in-class products provides for exciting times here at Kimber, he added.”

“We are pleased with the impressive track record that Alabama has with attracting and retaining world-class manufacturing companies,” said Leslie Edelman, Kimber’s President & CEO.

“Growing our company intelligently depends significantly on being in the right manufacturing environment, and in Troy, we have a community dedicated to our long-term success. It has been a pleasurable and fruitful experience working with Mayor Jason Reeves and his team,” Edelman said.

James Cox, Kimber’s chief financial officer, said an unprecedented growth in demand for Kimber products is driving the company to increase its manufacturing capacity.

“As we continue to move into uncharted waters in regards to Kimber product demand, it was important to us to build a facility that will allow us to secure a significant new plateau of capacity,” he said.

“With talented Alabamians already manufacturing a wide range of high-quality products that are in demand around the globe, the state can offer Kimber an ideal business environment and a skilled workforce for its expansion project,” Governor Kay Ivey said.

“Kimber’s investment in Troy will create a significant number of high-paying design engineering and manufacturing jobs, and we are committed to helping the company find long-lasting success in Alabama,” she added. “Kimber is a first-class firearms manufacturer with a reputation for precision craftsmanship, dependability and accuracy, which makes it just the kind of high-performance company we want to attract to the state,” said Greg Canfield, Secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce.