INDUSTRY Accents
It’smade here By Briana Murrell
From its beginnings as a hub of riverfront trading, Cumberland County has always been home to businesses and products that benefit people around the globe. Today, thousands of workers produce everything from special films, fibers and chemicals to rubber and tires, sports apparel to bras, gelatin powder to the newest military technologies. It’s all made right here in the Sandhills.
DuPont
Founded in 1802 as a gunpowder plant on the Brandywine Creek, today DuPont produces films, fibers and special chemicals used in everything from office building windows to solar cells and the panels lining the trailers of 18-wheelers. The Fayetteville Works Plant opened for commercial production in 1971 near the
banks of the Cape Fear River, providing a unique access to water that would help with the production of several major DuPont products. Today, the plant has grown to include more than 2,200 acres. Fayetteville’s DuPont plant is the world’s sole producer of Nafion® and SentryGlas®
that help create safety glass to protect against such things as major storms or devastating car accidents. More than 460 employees manufacture these products used by homeowners, businesses, the military and others every day. “DuPont’s mission,” said Karen Wrigley, plant manager, “is to translate science into products people can use.”
54 | Accents • 2010 - 2011
