The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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June 23, 2009

Wind energy comes to Woodward

By Michelle Seeber, CNHI News Service

WOODWARD — Atlantic Wind Energy Services has opened its doors in Woodward.

Located near the airport, the company performs transportation and service to the wind energy industry.

According to Mike Hay-hurst, president of Atlantic Wind Energy, the business has trucks and trailers that haul all wind energy components.

The home office is in Sugarland, Texas.

Woodward was chosen, he said, because “we were looking for an area that had (little) humidity. We looked all the way up into Kansas.”

During his research, Hayhurst met LaVern Phillips, of Woodward Industrial Foundation.

“Woodward made it very easy for us,” Hayhurst said. “With this location we’re in the hub of everything we do. We’re close to all the action here.”

Hayhurst was referring to windfarms in northwest Oklahoma and Texas.

“We are fully engaged in opening up a field service center,” he said. “We would like to open a machine shop that would service wind energy components. We would repair and refurbish energy components other than transportation and service.”

Currently, the majority of the company’s business in-volves transportation service for Suzlon, he said. Suzlon is a manufacturer of wind towers.

Atlantic Wind Energy Ser-vices came into existence from a company that hauled materials, Hayhurst said.

“We modified our trailers for wind energy hauling in January 2008,” he said. “We saw there was a future in it.”

The company has several sites. One is in Rosharon, Texas, and is a 20-acre storage facility for wind energy towers.

“We have a 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Houston which also stores wind energy components,” he said. Then, there is a “20-acre facility in Brownsville, Texas, for storage and now this facility.”

The location in Woodward is a four-acre site.

According to Hayhurst, Atlantic Wind Energy Ser-vices began looking for a site about 60 days ago.

“It only took two months to decide on a location,” he said.

Phillips, who was at the new Woodward business last week, said, “We’re thrilled Atlantic has chosen us as a site and look forward to a long relationship with this company.



Seeber writes for the Woodward News.

“We’ve been very im-pressed with their expertise in this service for wind energy,” Phillips said.

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