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U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, speaks with CELINA president Jeff Grieshop on Monday during a tour of CELINA's spacious facilities.
CELINA - U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, voiced support for President Donald Trump's handling of the war with Iran and stressed the importance of involving local communities with the development of data centers in Ohio during a stop in Celina Monday afternoon.
Jordan, who visited manufacturer CELINA and later met with Mayor Jeff Hazel and other city officials, also took time to field questions from the media.
Jordan is seeking to once again represent Mercer County, which will become part of his 4th District next year following last year's redistricting. Mercer and Van Wert counties were both moved from the 5th District, currently represented by U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, to the 4th District.
Jordan is certainly no stranger to the area. Up until 2022, Mercer County was carved up into three congressional districts, represented by Latta, Jordan and U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy. However, the maps were subsequently redrawn, with all of Mercer County situated in the 5th District from 2022 through the end of 2026.
The most recently adopted district plan, though, has all of Mercer and Van Wert counties in the 4th District, which Jordan has represented since 2007. Jordan will face off against Democrat Joshua Kolasinski and independent Tracey Tackett for the District 4 seat in the general election on Nov. 3.
Trump on Monday scoffed at Iran's demand for reparations for devastation caused to the country by the U.S. and Israeli bombardment over the past five months - a demand he said Tehran's negotiators hadn't raised until now.
Trump's social media post Monday came after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei stressed that Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the U.S. meets its conditions.
Tehran wants the U.S. to end its blockade of Iranian ports, lift economic sanctions and release Iran's frozen assets. It also said the U.S. must pay compensation for war damage.
The Daily Standard asked Jordan his thoughts on Trump's handling of the Iran situation.
"He's been clear about this," Jordan said. "We can't let this terrible regime get a nuclear weapon. And they've killed Americans, Israelis, others, thousands of their own people. And they're so bad - 47 years."
Underscoring his own wrestling background, Jordan noted that wrestling is huge in Iran.
"They're so bad … they took that 19-year-old junior champ and they hung him publicly because he had spoke out against the government. Like that's how bad they are," Jordan said. "So we can't let them get a nuclear weapon. I just hope it gets over with as quickly as possible."
The young wrestler, Saleh Mohammadi, was hanged March 19 along with two other young men in Qom, just south of the capital, Tehran, according to Iranian state media. They had been sentenced on charges of "moharabeh," or "waging war against God," after what Amnesty International called "grossly unfair trials."
Jordan also weighed in on the public backlash sparked by the proliferation of data centers, saying he's 100% in favor of more involvement from local communities.
"Local people have to have a say in this. I think it's really important that there' local oversight of (data centers). We're hearing concerns - and I think appropriately so - from people," he said. "We want to beat China, of course, but you got to do it the right way - and the right way is making sure the people in the community get to weigh in and get to have their say and get to figure out how this is going to work in the right way."
Is it time for a federal framework to regulate data centers?
"The state public utilities commission has weighed in on it that you don't want … the residential electric costs to go up, and I know there's some things that they've done at the state level on looking how these things get sited, but to me it's all about making sure that the local community gets their say on the front end."
CELINA President Jeff Grieshop and other company officials led Jordan on a tour through its spacious warehouse and 200,00-square-foot manufacturing center.
Over the last several years, CELINA has built itself into a manufacturing powerhouse capable of producing any type of industrial textile for government/military, commercial and industrial customers.
What began as a side hustle renting tables, chairs and tents at a Fleetfoot Road residence has mushroomed into an industrial textile manufacturing juggernaut, supplying military-grade shelters to the U.S. Department of Defense. For instance, in recent times, CELINA's military shelters have been used to store and perform maintenance on military vehicles, including drones in Ukraine.
CELINA has more than 130 employees positioned locally and in Poland, Germany, the Philippines and China, where some of the company's commercial manufacturing takes place.
"We've got some big things coming," said CELINA marketing director Adam Liette, a Coldwater native who led special operations missions in the U.S. Army before settling back in the area with his family. "One thing you're going to see here today is CELINA's been developing a new environmental control unit, ECU. It's basically a military slang for HVAC unit."
CELINA has been developing the ECU for several years in response to an Air Force requirement, Liette said.
"And so it's one of the things we're going to be able to show the Congressman here today in addition to our facility," Liette said. "He hasn't been here since we moved all production back over here from St. Marys. So we'll be able to show him the entire facility and just how much manufacturing we can do here at CELINA."
He also provided other updates.
"Requirements continue to come in with contingency operations overseas," he said. "We see a constant request for material support to Central Command, mostly, right now with the situation in Iran. So we continue to field calls and get whatever we can out the door. So a number of the things that you see being packed up here today is going to the Middle East. So that continues to be a big part of our push.
"Humanitarian shelters. Also our big large area maintenance shelters is our main product and that's used for maintenance, basically. They park aircraft inside of it and do maintenance operations in between missions."
Asked by Jordan, Grieshop said CELINA has had a good year of business overall.
"It's an odd year. Between what we do with the military and what we do with the imports, it's been an odd year," Grieshop said.
"Imports, you mean relative to tariff concerns?" Jordan asked.
"Yeah. Tariff concerns as far as just the supply chain as far as raw materials," Grieshop said. "A lot of the raw materials went up due to tariffs, so there's been a lot more on-shoring, which increased prices of the people that could. So it's just been a bubble."
Asked for his impressions, Jordan called CELINA "amazing."
"This is west central Ohio at its finest. The communities and the people over here are amazing," he said. "Here you got a family who were just talking to someone that needed a tent for something, and they said, 'Well, we think we can do that,' and shazam, here you have it 30 years later, this amazing company helping our men and women in the armed services."
Jordan said it's an example of the American Dream in action.
"You got a goal, you got a dream, you work hard, good things happen," he said.
- The Associated Press contributed to this article
