Staff photo / Dan Pompili From left, Zoetic founders Avery Hong and Jerome Ringo, Zoetic President Scott Gorley, Zoetic Global Business Development Officer and former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber CEO Guy Coviello cut the ribbon on Zoetic Global’s new refrigerant manufacturing plant at 360 E. Federal St. on Wednesday.

YOUNGSTOWN — It was an international — and even star-studded — affair downtown on Wednesday for the grand opening of a new business that officials say will make Youngstown a player in the global economy.

Representatives from city and county governments, local nongovernment agencies and dozens of national and international businesses from South America, Africa and Asia joined executives of Zoetic Global to celebrate the company’s new refrigerant plant at 360 E. Federal St.

Among those executives was former Mahoning Valley Congressman Tim Ryan, now Zoetic’s global business development officer.

“This has evolved from the DNA of the steelworkers and autoworkers and manufacturing workers from this community,” Ryan said. “We used to ship steel to New York City to build skyrises and huge commercial buildings, and now we’re shipping refrigerant from our community to New York City to to help those businesses be able to thrive and keep America competitive, rebuild the middle class, and to address this global challenge that we have of climate, with global solutions in local communities, creating local jobs in these older industrial towns.”

Ryan said the refrigerant Zoetic makes is specially formulated and patented to make compressors in refrigeration and air conditioning units run smoother and cooler, saving costs and reducing the user’s carbon output.

“We’re going to give businesses a 20% savings on their energy costs, which is a complete tax cut for them to reinvest in their businesses, bending the curve on climate and on carbon,” he said.

Ryan said Zoetic’s opening is just one more step in Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber CEO Guy Coviello’s plan to eliminate the term “Rust Belt” from the Valley’s vocabulary and replace it with “Tech Belt.”

Coviello said the Mahoning Valley is on the brink of a major metamorphosis.

“We’re very excited to partner with you, to grow with you, to share with you something that I think you already know – our amazing people, our innovation, innovative workforce is second to none,” he said. “Now we are manufacturing a revolutionary product – Zoetic’s refrigerants that are changing the environment on a global scale. The Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber pledges to help you get those refrigerants in every factory, in every warehouse and every school building in the Mahoning Valley.”

The company has stated that it should be operating on or about Sept. 1, and once production is ramped up, the facility could employ as many as 30 people.

Ryan said the plant will be a union shop and that talks between Zoetic and the Local 396 United Association of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders, and HVAC Service Techs to staff the facility are underway.

Ryan said Zoetic also will be opening a similar facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the company’s first plant in the Middle East.

Also during the day’s festivities, which included a conference at the Lake Club in Poland, Zoetic signed a partnership agreement with Seoul, South Korea-based Trident Global Holdings, to enter the rare earth minerals market.

ROOSEVELT SPEAKS

The conference included a luncheon with keynote speaker Theodore Roosevelt IV, great grandson of the 26th president of the United States, and managing director at Barclay’s Investment Bank.

“We’ve created a sustainable impact banking team and we had the foresight to say that it should be merged and work collaboratively with our natural resources group and our power group,” Roosevelt said. “A company like Zoetic, they’ve got a very effective refrigerant that will save its user energy. That’s a no-brainer.”

Among the international representatives who spoke Wednesday at the facility was Dr. Nasir Latif of Brunei, the chairman of Farm Fresh Industries, which partners with Makassar, Indonesia-based Induk-Kud.

Within the company’s purview is the sourcing and supply for a $30 billion program to provide free school meals to roughly 83 million children in Indonesia.

Latif said that kind of project demands a great deal of refrigeration.

“Our demand for refrigeration could make us the single largest company requiring this sort of refrigerant product,” he said. “And without it, we might be the single largest carbon emitter.”

Latif said the entire southeast Asian region – in which Brunei is centralized – can be influenced from his country.

Southeast Asia represents a population of nearly 700 million people and a $3 trillion economy, he said. Zoetic, he said, will partner with his company and government to provide guidance on reducing carbon emissions and feeding people there more effectively and efficiently.

Additionally, Latif said, his company will influence new business partners by insisting that they reduce their carbon footprints as well, and referring them to Zoetic’s refrigerants as one solution for doing so.

Nico Barletta, on the board of the Bank of Panama, said his government is working with Colombia and Ecuador to provide safe drinking water and reduce the carbon footprints of food suppliers there. He said they have secured agreements from the largest supermarket group in Panama and Ecuador to test Zoetic refrigerants in the air conditioning systems in their stores.

Also in attendance, as a guest of Zoetic founders Jerome Ringo and Avery Hong, was retired NBA great Julius Erving. The man known as “Dr. J” declined to comment on the facility or the event.

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