Cape Coral firm plans 80 hires

BRADENTON — Cape Coral manufacturing entrepreneur Bob Long will expand on the Gulf Coast, with the purchase of the former Wellcraft marine facility in southern Manatee County.

Long's firm, JRL Enterprises, plans to grow a composite tool-making operation in the old Wellcraft facility, which has been vacant since 2008. The expansion, aided by $240,000 in performance-based state and county incentives, is expected to generate 80 jobs, according the Manatee Economic Development Corp.

The move is also a homecoming of sorts for Long, who was Wellcraft's president from 1976 through the 1980s, according to a Manatee EDC release. “We are busting at the seams at our current locations in Cape Coral and Pine Island,” Long says in the release. “We searched in Lee County for an appropriate facility and considered out-of-state opportunities, but we ultimately turned to Manatee County where I had worked for so long.”