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French manufacturer Tageos holds grand opening for Fletcher plant

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French manufacturer Tageos holds grand opening for Fletcher plant

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FLETCHER – Tageos, a French technology manufacturer that chose Fletcher for its first location in North America, held its grand opening on May 15, and community and state leaders were there to join in the celebration.

The company, which designs and manufactures radio-frequency identification inlays and tags, was founded in 2007 by Matthieu Picon, Laurent Delaby and Nicolas Jacquemin, and they were at the Fletcher plant for its grand opening, along with representatives from the state senate and governor’s office.

Picon, the chief executive officer of Tageos, said the opening of the Fletcher plant has his team filled with joy and pride.

“Since we founded Tageos in 2007, it has grown enormously. Everyone in the company from Day 1 has shaped Tageos into becoming a global leader in developing and providing innovative, high-quality RFID laser tags,” he said. “Today marks another milestone in our company’s history. We are pleased and very honored to be here.”

Through a $35 million investment, Tageos purchased the property and building that was the former home of Continental Automotive Systems at Broadpoint Industrial Park, 1 Quality Way in Fletcher. The company was awarded a near $880,000 economic incentive over five years by the Henderson County Board of Commissioners last year, according to past Times-News reporting.

“With the addition of our new site here in Fletcher, we are able to manufacture globally up to nine billion of the RFID inlays and tags per year,” Picon said. “We have expansion plans here.”

General Manager Chris Hykin said he was in Henderson County in 2019 when Continental announced it was closing its facility.

“It was devastating to the community. To see what we’ve done to be able to bring good jobs back to Western North Carolina is a huge achievement,” Hykin said. “I’ve been in Henderson County and working with county officials for a long time. It’s an amazing community. The community understands the value of manufacturing and how these jobs make a difference in our community.”

When the Tageos founders first gave Hykin numbers to submit to the county for approval of the plant, he said the proposal showed there would be 64 jobs onsite by 2026.

“I want to be the first one to tell you that currently we’re at 68 jobs,” he said. “We’ve passed our 2026 goal, and I see us going over 100 jobs by the end of this year.”

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Hykin said the hourly entry pay for the jobs is $18 an hour.

“Depending on which shift you work, you get a shift differential, and you get a weekend bonus,” he said.

The weekend/night shift pays $21.63 an hour, and the weekend/day shift pays $20 an hour. With eight hours of overtime in each shift (four 12-hour shifts), the average salary ends up being about $67,000 a year.

“What we are seeing is that some people prefer overtime and some prefer nights,” he said. “And as soon as thisl event is over today, I’ll be posting more jobs. I’ll have 10 more positions that I’ll be filling immediately.”

Jobs will be posted at the Tageos website at https://www.tageos.com/en/get-in-touch/careers.html.

According to previous reporting, the industrial park at Quality Point has over 338,000 square feet of manufacturing and headquarters space. Tageos is the building’s first manufacturing tenant and will use around 50,000 square feet, but the building still has 30,000 square feet of tech space, 21,000 square feet of office space and up to 150,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely said the addition of Tageos further aids the town’s vision of the future.

“Fletcher has been home to large manufacturing facilities for a long time and welcomes the innovation of Tageos to our growing tech center manufacturing hub,” he said. “On behalf of the town of Fletcher, we thank you for allowing us to support your growth.”

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