Callan JMB, the publicly traded company developing the Atlas Complex on the former Judson College campus in Marion, announced Tuesday a $60 million joint venture with Bia Power Systems LLC and Alabama State University to manufacture transformers and other electrical equipment in Brewton.
The operation is planned for an ASU-owned facility in Brewton, in Escambia County, and would manufacture and assemble transformers, power-distribution equipment, switchgear and related products for electric utilities, data centers, industrial operators and renewable-energy developers across North America, according to the announcement. The companies said the project is intended to reshore manufacturing work now performed in China.
The partners project first-year venture revenue of $25 million to $40 million, rising to $100 million to $150 million by the third year, with capacity for more than $150 million in annual manufacturing revenue at full scale. They estimate 150 to 250 direct jobs in Alabama and more than $200 million in regional economic impact over five years, with commercial sales targeted within nine months of groundbreaking. No groundbreaking date was announced.
The release cautions that all of those figures are management projections for the joint venture as a whole and should not be read as revenue belonging to Callan JMB alone. The partners said additional information about ownership, funding and development milestones would come later.
Tuesday’s announcement follows the company’s Aug. 6 formation of Callan Power LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on domestic manufacturing of transformers and other power-system equipment. That release said Callan Power would be based at the Atlas Complex, with future manufacturing operations planned for the ASU-owned facility in Brewton, and that the subsidiary intends to bring automated manufacturing capabilities to the Marion campus.
“It directly advances the strategy behind Callan Power,” Callan JMB president and CEO Wayne Williams said of the Brewton venture in the release.
ASU, which was founded in Marion in 1867 before relocating to Montgomery, is expected to support workforce development and training programs preparing students and area residents for careers in advanced manufacturing, electrical assembly and testing, engineering technologies and skilled trades. ASU President Quinton T. Ross Jr. said the collaboration shows how higher education and private industry can work together to prepare talent and strengthen communities.
The announcement describes Bia Power Systems as a specialist in power-infrastructure solutions and electrical-systems integration serving utility, industrial, commercial and government customers throughout North America. Its chief executive officer, Brandon Wu, said demand for reliable electrical infrastructure continues to accelerate. The release did not say where the company is based or describe its history or prior projects.
The venture is the latest in a series of new directions for Callan JMB, which was formed in January 2024 as a Nevada holding company for Coldchain Technology Services, a cold chain logistics firm serving healthcare and emergency management customers, and went public in February 2025 at $4 a share. In the year and a half since going public, the company has announced ventures in GLP-1 weight loss drug logistics, pharmaceutical manufacturing and potential higher education partnerships, first with Troy University and later with ASU, before this month’s turn to electrical equipment.
The company’s pharmaceutical plans at the Atlas Complex remain in development. In July, Callan JMB and ASU broke ground on the Marion 9 Biomanufacturing Center at the complex, projecting the partnership could ultimately generate about $500 million in annual gross revenue, of which Callan JMB would receive 21 percent.
Those projections stand alongside the company’s reported results. For the first three months of this year, Callan JMB reported revenue of $1.1 million, down 24 percent from a year earlier, and a net loss of $3.2 million, with $1.4 million in cash on hand at March 31. Nasdaq has issued the company two deficiency notices this year, one after stockholders’ equity fell below the exchange’s $2.5 million minimum and another on June 29 after the closing bid price of the company’s stock stayed below $1 for 30 consecutive business days. The company has until Dec. 28 to regain compliance with the bid price requirement.
Neither of this month’s announcements said what manufacturing work or how many jobs, if any, would be located at the Marion campus itself.
