Cavanaugh visits Franklin
PHOTOS BY ALISON JAMES Twinkle Cavanaugh, president of the Alabama Public Service Commission, visits Montgomery Distributing in Spruce Pine as part of a whirlwind trip to Northwest Alabama last week. Patricia and Scott Montgomery invited Cavanaugh to the region for a tour of Montgomery Distributing and conversations with local entities like the Franklin and Shoals chambers of commerce.
PHOTOS BY ALISON JAMES Cavanaugh talks with and meets each employee at Montgomery Distributing Thursday. The warehouse and distribution industry in Spruce Pine has grown to employ 40 people in 80,000 square feet since beginning operations in December 2014.
Twinkle Cavanaugh, president of the Alabama Public Service Commission and a candidate for governor, made a visit to Montgomery Distributing last week at the invitation of owners Patricia and Scott Montgomery, as part of a quick one-day tour of Northwest Alabama that also included visits with the Franklin County and Shoals chambers of commerce.
“We want to put Northwest Alabama on the map, for Montgomery to see what’s going on here,” Patricia explained. “As the president of public utilities, she needs to see what utilities are needed and how to continue to grow the infrastructure (in this area). Hopefully we can work on broadband for our schools and companies.”
“There’s a lot positive going on in Northwest Alabama,” Scott added. “We think it can be even better, and we’re excited about the prospect of having assistance to do that and the commitment to help us provide jobs.”
Cavanaugh spoke with the employees of Montgomery Distributing and with invited guests before being treated to a tour of the industry operations. She shared about her vision for making a difference in Montgomery.
“One of the things we get so frustrated about as Alabamians is, when the first thing you hear when someone goes into office in Montgomery is, ‘There’s just not enough money. Can you dig a little deeper and get a little more money out of your paycheck and send it to Montgomery?’” Cavanaugh said. She emphasized that when she herself came to Montgomery, she prioritized “right-sizing” the commission, scaling back costs and operations in a way that she felt showed good stewardship. Her changes included shuffling personnel, restructuring and reducing her workforce as people retired, along with cutting back the number of state vehicles on the road. “Over the past six years, I’ve not fired anyone, but we’ve gone down from 119 employees to 71 employees,” Cavanaugh said. “Nobody lost their job, but as people retired, I realized we had great people, and we needed utilize them in a way that made a difference.”
She said she also made it a point to cut back the office space devoted to commission operations. Cavanaugh said the commission has more than quadrupled the leftover funding it returns to the legislature each year, from $3 million to $13 million, in savings.
“I believe our best days are ahead of us,” Cavanaugh said.
Cavanaugh said with her own focus on the importance of bringing more jobs to Alabama, she was excited to have the opportunity to visit a “job-producer,” Montgomery Distributing. “You can’t even put in perspective all the problems in (the city of) Montgomery right now, but I believe the way we solve those problems is through jobs for people throughout the state – jobs for the rural communities, jobs for the big cities. We’ve got to have jobs.”
Montgomery Distributing began operations in December 2014 in the Phil Campbell Industrial Park on Highway 13.
“When we moved here, we realized pretty quickly, kids who grew up here didn’t have a job,” Scott said. “It was very much on our hearts to provide jobs. That’s what we want to be about. It’s our ministry, and we enjoy it very much.”
“We also saw that we could be an anchor in this area, that we could anchor one of the industrial parks,” Patricia added. “We wanted to make the biggest impact we could and the biggest difference that we could.
“We’re committed to good economic development that doesn’t hurt but gives back more than it takes.”
