Otter to attend local groundbreaking ceremonies

by Brian Walker
| October 1, 2011 9:00 PM

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter will make two stops in Kootenai County on Tuesday in the name of progress.

Otter, along with School Superintendent Tom Luna and local officials, will attend a groundbreaking ceremony for the Kootenai Technical Education Campus at 11:30 a.m. at the southwest corner of Meyer and Lancaster roads in Rathdrum.

KTEC is a professional-technical high school that will serve the Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and Lakeland school districts.

Otter will then participate in a groundbreaking for Ground Force Worldwide at 4:30 p.m. at 6001 E. Seltice Way, Post Falls.

Ground Force Worldwide is the holding company that owns Ground Force Manufacturing across Seltice, the future UnderGround Force and Ground Force Worldwide locations in the United Kingdom and Peru.

The firms manufacture mining equipment for companies around the world.

UnderGround Force, which will be build across from Ground Force Manufacturing, will employ about 150 employees.

Ron Nilson, CEO of Ground Force Worldwide, said the company also plans to lease the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's 55,000-square-foot manufacturing building in Plummer for its water tank division.

The building was formerly occupied by F.O. Berg and Echelon LLC, which made fuel bladders for the government.

Ground Force purchased the machinery from Echelon. About 35 people will work at the site.

"We're continuing to grow our business and increase exports," Nilson said.

He said the company used to have 75 percent of its business domestic and 25 percent international, but it has flip-flopped.

Voters in the local school districts approved financing for KTEC a year ago. The 54,000-square-foot school will offer classes in skilled trades such as health occupations, welding, construction and automotive to juniors and seniors.

Mark Cotner, who has been executive director of the Canyon-Owyhee School Service Agency, a consortium similar to KTEC in Wilder, since 2003, will be KTEC's part-time administrator. Contractors Northwest of Coeur d'Alene will build KTEC.