Executives with Ranger Scientific LLC held a news conference to announce on May 31, 2016, that they would bring one of the largest industrial facilities in the Kanawha Valley onto a reclaimed surface mine site near Belle. Several state officeholders, mostly Republicans, spoke at the event and touted the pro-business legislative agenda that they said helped bring the project to West Virginia.
But Scott Stansfield, manager of Quincy Coal Company, which owns the site that would host the plant, said last week that though talks are ongoing, the land has not been sold to the developers.
Likewise, Kanawha County Commissioner Kent Carper said though he still communicates with company representatives regularly, there's no progress to report.
"I do know this, they haven't quit yet," Carper said. "Last time I was contacted by them was this week. They touch base with me on a regular basis."
Both Stansfield and Carper deferred further questions to Daniel Pearlson, the company's CEO.
In an email, Pearlson declined an interview and criticized earlier coverage from the Gazette Mail regarding similar announcements from companies he's tied to for ammunition manufacturing plants in Texas and Nevada that never came to fruition.
"I have never been an employee or shareholder of any ammunition company in Nevada, and I certainly didn't start the company," he said in the email.
A news release from Handels Securities, which lists "Daniel Pearlsons" as a contact, announced the company would partner with DayDra Holdings Group to form Saber Ultra Precision Ammunition in Las Vegas.
Pearlson also told the State Journal in June 2016 that he had been an employee of an ammunition company in Nevada. "I was hired by Saber Ammunition in Nevada as a part-time technical consultant in automation systems," he told the State Journal.
He also told the Journal he expected to close the deal on buying the mining site by the end of June 2016.
The Gazette-Mail also reported last year on a 2013 confidentiality agreement signed by Mark Ryan, director of business development for Ranger Scientific, identifying several high-profile figures as "sources, contracts or their affiliates" such as Florida Governor and former presidential candidate Jeb Bush and his son George P. Bush. According to that report, many of these figures had no knowledge of the list or the company itself.
Despite the lack of progress, the company's website says production is estimated to commence in 2018 on 1,000 acres of land, sporting the 150,000 square-foot plant.
A former Ranger Scientific employee, Rick Clay, said he is no longer associated with Ranger Scientific and has not been since around Thanksgiving of last year. He declined to say whether he left of his own accord.
Reach Jake Zuckerman at jake.zuckerman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or @jake_zuckerman on Twitter.