BREVARD — New Excelsior will create 80 jobs and invest $5.5 million over three years to restore and expand a local printing plant once owned by Yonkers, N.Y.-based Excelsior Packaging Group. Annual pay will average more than $25,000, lower than Transylvania County’s $32,440. New Excelsior is a new division of Lyndhurst, N.J.-based Sigma Plastics Group, which makes packaging and films for food-service, health-care and other industries.
FLETCHER — Scott Hamilton, former CEO of AdvantageWest Economic Development Group, was named executive director of Appalachian Regional Commission in September. The Washington, D.C.-based partnership of federal, state and local governments funds business-development, education, transportation and housing projects in 13 states. Hamilton worked nine years at AdvantageWest and was its president and chief executive since 2009.
ASHEVILLE — Asheville Regional Airport will spend $64 million to replace its runway. The five-year project began in August with construction of a temporary runway that will be converted to a taxiway once the new one is completed, scheduled for 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration and N.C. Department of Transportation will contribute about $50 million toward the project.
CANTON — The General Assembly approved $12 million in incentives over six years for Evergreen Packaging to convert the coal-fired boilers at its local paper mill to natural gas. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring the mill, opened in 1908, to reduce its use of coal to meet new emissions standards (Statewide, September).