Solero Builds On A Strong Legacy
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
There are some things we probably don’t brag about enough in Water Valley and Yalobusha County.
Solero Technologies and the people who go to work there every day are certainly on that list.
Last Thursday brought some good news for Water Valley and Yalobusha County. The Mississippi Development Authority announced that Solero will invest more than $14 million in its Water Valley operation, an expansion that will create 86 new jobs.
Those are big numbers for any community. For a rural county, they are enormous.
And while the announcement is certainly worth celebrating on its own, I couldn’t help but think back over the last few years and the many times I have stood inside that plant listening to company leaders talk about Water Valley’s future.
I have covered Solero’s year-end celebrations for the past three years. There is usually plenty of good news to report, and the company always uses the occasion to give back to the community.
But there has also been a consistent message from the people who own and operate the company.
They believe in the Water Valley plant.
More importantly, they believe in the people who work there.
In 2023, Solero was coming off a year in which sales had grown 21 percent. CEO Dr. Donald James talked about new products and the possibility of major new business coming to Water Valley.
Cyrus Nikou, founder of Atar Capital, which owns Solero, was even more direct when he spoke to employees.
“You guys are creating something really special,” he told them.
A year later, the news was even bigger.
At the 2024 celebration, James announced that 14 new production lines would be coming to Water Valley, bringing six new product families and an estimated 80 or so new jobs. That expansion is the same project state economic development officials formally announced last week, now pegged at more than $14 million in investment and 86 new jobs.
The company had acquired several additional plants around the world, including one in North Carolina. Solero made the decision to close that North Carolina operation and move the work here.
Think about that for a minute.
A global company had choices about where to put that production.
It chose Water Valley.
James explained why that day, pointing to the advantages of having engineering, production and other support functions together at the Water Valley plant. But there was another reason that came through clearly in the remarks from company leadership.
The workforce here had earned their confidence.
By the time I returned for the 2025 year-end celebration, equipment from North Carolina was already arriving and being installed.
James talked that morning about more than $200 million in potential new business and told employees that “Water Valley has a very strong future.”
Nikou again turned the attention toward the people standing in front of him.
“You’ve done an extremely fantastic job,” he told the employees. “We have a world-class management team, but it all starts with you.”
That may be the most important quote of all.
Factories don’t stay open for more than half a century by accident.
The Water Valley plant opened in 1972. It has been Holley Carburetor, BorgWarner and now Solero Technologies. The products coming off the lines have changed dramatically. Carburetors gave way to fuel injection, then transmission controls and now increasingly sophisticated technology used in modern vehicles.
Ownership has changed. Markets have changed. The automobile industry has changed more times than most of us could count.
But through all of that, people have continued walking through those doors and going to work.
There are families in this county with multiple generations who have worked at that plant.
When Solero celebrated the plant’s 50th anniversary in 2022, company officials specifically pointed to that generational workforce as one of the reasons for its longevity. By the end of 1973, the plant already employed about 500 people. At its peak in 1981, employment reached around 1,700.
That history makes Thursday’s announcement mean a little more.
This isn’t somebody promising to build a factory someday if everything falls into place.
The factory is here.
The people are here.
The history is here.
And now another $14 million is being invested here, with 86 more jobs coming with it. Eighty-six jobs mean 86 opportunities for somebody to make a living here. They mean families buying groceries, paying mortgages, eating in restaurants and shopping in local stores. They mean more people with a reason to build a life in Yalobusha County.
There are plenty of people who deserve credit for making an expansion of this size happen. Solero’s leadership and Atar Capital are making a substantial investment. The Mississippi Development Authority, Yalobusha County Economic Development District, TVA and others have all had roles in supporting the project.
But I keep coming back to those hundreds of people who clock in at that plant each day.
