By Paul Specht
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BENSON, North Carolina (WRAL) — For decades, Benson has been known for hosting a festival called Mule Days — a four-day tribute to the Johnston County town’s agricultural roots. Soon, it could be known for manufacturing a staple of modern technology: rare-earth magnets that help power everything from cellphones to nuclear submarines.
Research Triangle Park-based startup Vulcan Elements plans to open a plant in Benson, just south of the intersection of Interstate 95 and I-40. It’s part of a $918 million Pentagon-backed effort to create the biggest factory of its kind outside of China — one that could create 1,000 jobs, about one for every five residents in the town.
Large economic announcements have become routine in North Carolina, a state regularly rated as a top destination for businesses. The Triangle’s colleges and universities, combined with the state’s falling corporate tax rate, have made the region a popular destination for high-tech companies.
Folks in Benson, home to less than 5,000 people, assumed the growth would make it to their corner of the region someday. In addition to being located about 30 miles southeast of Raleigh, Benson sits next to two of the busiest interstates in America — an attractive trait to companies that manufacture products within the U.S.
However, location alone wasn’t enough to land the type of job-creators that were settling between Raleigh and Durham.
To compete for those types of projects, it helped Benson to have a turn-key site — a facility that could help a company get up and running quickly, said Chris Johnson, Johnston County’s economic development director.
“Going by a soybean field and saying, ‘Well, all the infrastructure is underground and here’s a field and you can have a building up in 12 to 18 months … a lot of times [companies] would much rather see something that’s coming out of the ground, so that they know that they can see a finish line,” Johnson said.
A couple years ago, Benson produced something Johnson could pitch. Investors in 2023 completed the construction of a 500,000 square-foot industrial development known as the Crosspoint Logistics Center.
Benson got the building it needed — and with plenty of land to expand. Johnson and others then needed to prove that a Benson employer could attract the talent it needed.
“Looking at Johnston County, the number one question is: ‘Chris, you’ve got three and a half percent unemployment. Where am I going to get my talent from?’” Johnson said.
Benson may be small, but it’s getting more neighbors by the day. The county was home to a record 124,000 employed people at the start of the year — up about 15% from a year earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the biggest year-over-year jump since at least 1990.
Johnson says he tells employers who visit the area to turn on their television and watch the morning news.
“I am sure they’ll show a live shot of U.S. 70 and N.C. 42 leaving Johnston County, and the 50,000 cars that are on the highways going west,” Johnson said. “If you pay them well enough, every one of those cars, I am confident, would much rather live five minutes away or just down the street to one of these facilities.”
It also helped that Benson is about 30 minutes away from Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, the most populous military base in the world. Vulcan Elements already recruits Bragg-based veterans who have operated heavy machinery and understand complex supply chains, John Maslin, Vulcan’s chief executive officer, said when announcing the project.
Maslin said the area’s abundance of skilled workers was “the biggest thing” in the company’s decision to commit to the Benson location. The company also considered sites in Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio, state officials said. Ohio was the other finalist, state officials said.
“We have and we will continue to leverage the state’s extremely deep bench of talent, engineers and technicians who understand hardware, who understand manufacturing and will continue to engage with and hire military veterans as they transition out of Fort Bragg,” Maslin said.
Vulcan’s expansion comes as the U.S. ramps up its efforts to strengthen the nation’s supply chain for rare-earth magnets and other materials that are predominantly sourced overseas and at risk of being tangled in trade wars. China — which produces the vast majority of the world’s rare-earth magnets — has been tightening export restrictions to the U.S.
To help improve the nation’s access to rare-earth magnets, the federal government in November struck a $1.4 billion deal with Vulcan that will help the company meet its goal of producing up to 10,000 metric tons of Neodymium Iron Boron magnets over several years. The U.S. Department of Commerce said Nov. 3 that it struck a preliminary agreement to receive a $50 million equity stake in Vulcan.
Benson, which has been struggling financially, could certainly use the investment and expanded tax base.
The town announced in July details of an independent audit that found Benson owed more money than it was generating. The concerns related to funds spent on long-term projects “without sufficient funds on hand over time to cover those costs.”
The town sent out a press release assuring residents that basic services — utilities, police, the fire department and libraries — would continue to operate normally. A month later, Benson town commissioners amended the fiscal year 2025-26 budget with higher fee schedules for the fire, planning and parks departments “to better ensure recovery of costs of services in these departments,” the town said in a statement.
The timing of the Vulcan project couldn’t have been better. Benson Mayor Max Raynor said it’s “the biggest thing that ever happened to us.”
“It’s going to bring more businesses, more restaurants, all that kind of thing,” he said.
Raynor said the town has now balanced its budget and he considers the financial issues resolved. Even when the town was still dealing with the problems, though, Raynor encouraged staffers to think about Benson’s future. He had a hunch things would turn around.
“I’m sure there are towns around here that were saying, ‘Boy, I’d hate to be Benson,’” Raynor said. But he recalls telling town staff: “In a few weeks — trust me on this — I’ll bet you those same towns will be saying, ‘I sure do wish I was Benson.’”
Benson has been good at preserving its past, says Paul Boucher, who owns Small World Travel & Tours travel agency in downtown Benson.
The town’s performing arts center — W.J. Barefoot Auditorium — was originally a high school built in 1918. The local library used to be a bank. The town repurposed an old middle school for use by the local fire station. And Benson’s downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“This community as a whole is very deeply rooted,” Boucher said. “We’re not just going around, bulldozing stuff, knocking it down and starting over.”
But Vulcan’s decision points Benson to the future.
Boucher, who grew up in Benson and sits on various local boards, says the town’s best days are ahead of it — and he put money on it. In 2021, he bought one of the buildings downtown and renovated it for mixed use. The building, located at the corner of Main and Market streets, leases to businesses on the first floor and residents on the second — the first of its kind in Benson’s downtown.
“I wouldn’t have spent the amount of money in this community as I have if I didn’t feel confident that it was going to grow,” Boucher said.
Boucher’s bet is already paying off. The rooms are consistently occupied, he said. Last year, town leaders approved a social district downtown where people can walk around with beer and wine. Records show his property has an assessed value of three times what he paid for it.
Vulcan’s announcement was the cherry on top. State and local officials struck a deal with Vulcan, offering tens of millions of dollars in grants to be paid out if the company hits employment and investment goals. Boucher said he and other Johnston County leaders have been working for a long time to recruit a company that would be a good fit for the community.
“I believe it has far exceeded the expectations of what folks would have been expecting or looking for,” Boucher said.
In announcing Vulcan’s expansion to Benson, Maslin said he wants to create a business that employees “want to travel to.” The company is also eager to be a town partner. Jake Bowles, Vulcan’s chief operating officer, told local county officials at a Nov. 18 hearing that the company wants to sponsor Benson’s Mule Days festival.
“I also need to figure out how I enter a mule in this competition,” he said.
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