STOBER Drives Announces $5M U.S. Expansion

The expansion will include new equipment and the conversion of office space into an employee training facility.

Servo motors from STOBER Drives.
Servo motors from STOBER Drives.
STOBER Drives

On August 11, 2022, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced a $5 million investment by gearbox and servo motor maker STOBER Drives to expand operations in Maysville.

The investment will allow the company double the acreage of its current facility in Maysville to 14 acres. The expansion will include new equipment to increase manufacturing operations, and the conversion of a portion of office space to an employee training facility.

The project will create 35 jobs and will bring the company’s total Kentucky employment to 159 employees.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) in June preliminarily approved a 15-year incentive agreement with the company under the Kentucky Business Investment program.

The performance-based agreement can provide up to $525,000 in tax incentives as long as the company maintains its $5 million investment, creates and maintains 35 Kentucky-resident, full-time jobs across 15 years, and pays an average hourly wage of $20.25 including benefits across those jobs.

By meeting its annual targets over the agreement term, the company can be eligible to keep a portion of the new tax revenue it generates. The company may claim eligible incentives against its income tax liability and/or wage assessments.

In addition, STOBER Drives can receive resources from Kentucky’s workforce service providers. Those include no-cost recruitment and job placement services, reduced-cost customized training and job-training incentives.

STOBER is an 85-year-old company. In 1991, it established a presence in Kentucky when it opened a subsidiary in Maysville. In 1993, STOBER succeeded as the first supplier in the world to directly marry high-precision planetary gear units with dynamic servo motors.

Today, the company produces NEMA gear units, inline servo gear units, right angle gear units and rack and pinion drives to serve industries such as aerospace, automotive manufacturing, packaging, robotics and food processing.

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