LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Braidy Industries Inc. has reneged on a pledge to hire 15 community college graduates into $65,000-a-year jobs this spring as the Ashland-based company focuses on raising $500 million from investors to enable the construction of a much-anticipated aluminum mill in Boyd and Greenup counties.
Separately, Braidy Industries’ Massachusetts-based subsidiary Veloxint cut “a small handful of positions” last week as part of what it called a “normal business review,” though the company's CEO cited “financial constraints” in a termination letter obtained by WDRB.
Braidy Industries, which Kentucky taxpayers helped launch in 2017 with a $15 million investment, has had a turbulent month. The company’s board fired founder Craig Bouchard as its CEO on Jan. 28 and later accused him of jet-setting around the world on the company’s dime.
Bouchard, meanwhile, has sued to regain control of the company, saying he has the right to replace all the board members.
Amid the infighting, Braidy Industries is still far short of the investor money needed to finance construction of the aluminum mill, which has been said to cost up to $1.8 billion, raising concerns about the future of the project and Kentucky’s public money.
Graduates will not be hired
Despite not having the financing secured to build the mill, Braidy Industries in October promised jobs to the top 15 students in the two-year Advanced Integrated Technologies program at Ashland Community & Technical College.
Braidy Industries helped establish the program as a feeder for the aluminum mill, which the company has said will employ 600 once it's operating at full steam.
The first crop of AIT program students is set to graduate in May. Last fall, Braidy Industries said the students would be given jobs at its subsidiaries, Veloxint and NanoAl, at their manufacturing operations at the EastPark Industrial Center outside Ashland, where the aluminum mill is also planned.
But in a statement relayed through public relations firm RunSwitch this week, Braidy Industries said the “current status does not allow” for the hiring of the graduates in any part of the company this spring.
“While we know this program will lead to top-notch employees for Braidy, other manufacturing businesses also recognize the value and have indicated eagerness to consider employment by qualified applicants,” according to the statement.
Justin Turner, one of the ACTC students who had been in line for a job at Braidy Industries, told WDRB on Thursday that the students weren’t surprised to learn the company would not be able to hire them this year.
“We all kind of had the vibe that we knew it wasn’t going to be happening at that point in time,” Turner said. “… What they told us is, it’s basically going to be two years before they can hire anyone.”
Turner quit his job as a food delivery driver to enter the ACTC program. To participate, Turner, a father of two young children, commutes 45 minutes from Pedro, Ohio, four days a week and waits tables at a Texas Roadhouse to pay the bills, he told WDRB in November.
On Thursday, Turner said he was still grateful to Braidy Industries for sparking his interest in the program and that he was talking to other potential employers.
“The skillset I have now acquired through the schooling and the certifications … it’s definitely made me marketable,” he said.
Veloxint layoffs
Meanwhile, Veloxint laid off eight of 36 employees at its home base in Framingham, Mass., according to a company source. The source said employees were told that Braidy Industries recently cut Veloxint’s operating budget by 40%.
In a termination letter obtained by WDRB News, Veloxint CEO Alan Lund wrote, “This decision was necessitated by financial constraints.” He did not elaborate.
A Braidy Industries spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the statement from Veloxint, which does not specify the number of layoffs or the reason for the cuts.
“Last week, Veloxint eliminated a small handful of positions as part of a normal business review,” the company said. “… Veloxint’s talented team remains committed to developing key enabling technologies for the digital transformation of manufacturing. This includes the recently announced 3-year grant from the US Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office that will bring together a world class industrial-government-academic team to develop and scale next generation nanocrystalline metal alloys via advanced manufacturingprocesses.”
Veloxint was co-founded by Braidy Industries board member Christopher Schuh, who leads the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
