Group14 moves dirt, hires locals

MOSES LAKE — With construction crews only beginning to turn dirt on Group14 Technologies’ new Moses Lake facility, which is expected to be up and running sometime in 2024, Chief Operating Officer Eric Robinson said the company has already hired its first local production staff.

“We’ve already hired a number of people locally, including our first operators. Most folks don’t recognize and realize what it takes to be really, truly knowledgeable about a process like this,” Robinson said. “It takes quite some time.”

Robinson said the Woodinville-based company, which produces a specialized silicon-carbon composite for use in anodes in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, is already beginning to train future plant operators at its production facility in Woodinville. That effort is also ongoing with a joint venture the company has with South Korea-based industrial gas producer SK Materials to manufacture the composite in South Korea.

Group14 is one of two companies advancing silicon-battery technologies that are setting up in Moses Lake and are likely to provide jobs there and throughout the surrounding area. The other, Alameda-California-based Sila Nanotechnologies, uses an entirely different technology to produce its silicon material for rechargeable batteries and purchased the old Xyleco building at 3741 Road N NE, just across the road from REC Silicon.

The Group14 factory module nearing completion in South Korea is nearly identical to the two factory modules Group14 will build in Moses Lake, Robinson said. It will not only allow the company to see how the production process works but also give its newly hired employees an opportunity to learn that process.

“That is in the final construction phases and we’re actively heading over there to assist them in commissioning and startup of that facility,” he said. “We’ve already brought on our first operators, and they are training in Woodinville. They’re going to be going to Korea and assisting with the commissioning and startup there. They will come back way more knowledgeable than any person we could run through any training program.”

Robinson and Group14 Chief Engineer Frank Bruneel sit in a largely empty office across Wheeler Road from the site where the construction equipment is now digging up and grading. The company just moved into the building and employees have only the barest of necessities — chairs, plastic folding tables, laptops and monitors.

Right now, it’s all the company needs as it gets set to build what Robinson said will be the largest factory of its kind in the world, with two production modules able to manufacture 2,000 tons each of the silicon-carbon composite every year. It is, however, a complex process that has prompted Group14 to think big and hire as many of the “best and brightest” as the company could find, Robinson said.

“This is what we need for the silicon battery space. It needs this kind of scale,” Robinson said. “You think about the kinds of people that build facilities at this scale. It’s very, very large chemical companies. The big oil and gas companies would bite off a project this big.”

“This takes quite a bit of skill,” he added.

Bruneel said Group14 has learned a great deal from its much smaller-scale production facility in Woodinville, but the South Korean venture will also give the company some experience producing its compound on a much larger scale.

“Anytime you scale up a process, you’re going to learn things, because you’re doing things differently on a larger scale,” Bruneel said. “And that’s where the risk is, that’s where the challenge is. And that’s why you need to have good people on your team to help address those challenges.”

Robinson said Group14 is working with Big Bend Community College to help create a program that will train workers to oversee complex production processes like those the company will use. Process control is very similar across chemical and manufacturing industries, with oil refinery workers utilizing many of the same kinds of skills that Group14 will need in its employees to make its silicon-carbon composite or the silicon itself over at REC Silicon, he explained.

“Those process skills are unique and valuable,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for somebody who wants to work in this industry. It’s a very, very good-paying job. It’s a skilled labor job, and in quite a bit of demand.”

The company’s goal is twofold, Robinson said: to create good jobs in Moses Lake and create an industry in the United States that can ensure the future is made here and not abroad.

“I believe we are creating generational jobs in Moses Lake. I think my grandchildren could work here. Because I have some,” Robinson said. “I would love for a young person who grows up in this town to have the opportunity to stay and have a rewarding and fulfilling career in their hometown. That’s a wonderful thing to do.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfetherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.