Who Is Stella?

Whoever she is, she’s European, and bringing much needed jobs to the Dalton area:

“Stella,” the code name for an undisclosed manufacturer, promises 150-plus jobs to the recession-battered city of Dalton. City officials will announce their development coup Monday.

“We have been blessed the last 35, 40 years with a workhorse I call the carpet industry,” Mike Babb, who chairs the Whitfield County commission, said Thursday. “But it’s a maturing industry. So this is a ray of hope [to] get a new company to come to our community.”

Neither Babb nor other Dalton officials would name the company or discuss total investment, citing confidentiality agreements. Yet the commissioner and others confirmed that a Belgian company will announce its first U.S. plant Monday.

The company makes “flooring-related” products whose production uses “a lot of chemicals,” Babb said.

Roughly 85 employees will be hired at first, rising to 150 full-time jobs within two years.

Congrats to the folks in the area for landing a good manufacturer.