MORGANTOWN — “Welcome to Mountaintop,” Jeff Sokal said Friday afternoon, drawing cheers from 100 or so people gathered in the shadow of a behemoth structure perched like a crown atop the Morgantown Industrial Park.
Sokal and Doug Jantzi, the men behind Mountaintop Beverage, brought friends, family, collaborators and dignitaries to the site, off Master Graphics Road, to witness the placement of the final steel beam on a facility that encloses some seven acres.
“This project started with a farmer,” Sokal said, referencing dairy farmer Joe Shockey. “Joe wouldn’t stop pestering people about food insecurity in the state.”
While the economic impact of the state-of-the-art aseptic, shelf-stable food and beverage packaging facility is evident in the sheer scale of the construction project, Friday’s gathering was every bit as much about agriculture.
The gathered crowd heard from American Dairy Association Mideast President and CEO Scott Higgins. It also heard from West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt.
“Mark my words,” Leonhardt said. “There’s a lot of good economic activity happening in West Virginia. You’re seeing in the news almost every day. But this project is going to be the biggest downstream. This project will lead to more jobs, more education, more fulfillment, better nutrition … than any other project in the state of West Virginia going on right now.”
Jantzi marveled at the scope of the undertaking, noting some 1.7 million cubic yards of dirt was moved in just over 100 days to prepare the site.
“The first piece of vertical steel went up behind us on Dec. 30 of last year. Think about what you see back there. That’s eight and a half months, or 258 days,” he said.
Jantzi said he and Sokal were drawn to West Virginia and Monongalia County for a number of reasons, one of which was the ability to collaborate with WVU on an educational level to help push advances in extended shelf-life manufacturing.
His partner added another reason why a couple New Yorkers made the Mountain State the home of Mountaintop Beverage.
“West Virginians,” Sokal said, gesturing to the building and construction team waiting to hang the beam, “They just get sh*t done.”
