Aerial equipment manufacturer Haulotte Group this week laid the foundation stones for its future head office in Lorette, France. The new facility will employ more than 300 employees and be built on a 31,000-square-meter (333,681 square feet) piece of land and will include a 5,000-square-meter office building (almost 54,000 square feet), a 5,000-square-meter outdoor test area, a 2,500-square-meter innovation area, and a 500-square-meter showroom are.
Present for the ceremony were Gaël Perdriau, president of Saint-Etienne Métropole and Mayor of Saint-Etienne; Gérard Tardy, mayor of Lorette; Gérard Lacroix, secretary general of Loire Prefecture; Samy Kefi-Jerome from Auvergne Rhone-Alpes Region and many other elected officials and representatives of local companies that will build the new headquarters, as well as Haulotte executives and staff.
There were several speeches, including Lacroix who quoted U.S. author William Faulkner: “The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.” Lacroix also paid tribute to the Saubot family’s entrepreneurial spirit by saying “You are pursuing a dream that will come true.”
Haulotte’s North American headquarters are in Virginia Beach, Va.
