Leader of Randolph County Toyota plant steps down, new president named

88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont | By Paul Garber

Published May 16, 2025 at 1:57 PM EDT

Sean Suggs is retiring in June after leading the effort to begin manufacturing at the Toyota electric vehicle battery plant in Liberty. PAUL GARBER/WFDD

Sean Suggs, president of Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina, is stepping down. He has led much of the first phase of development of the Toyota electric vehicle battery plant in Liberty.

Suggs is retiring in June, the company says. He’s been in charge of manufacturing and the start of production at the nearly $14 billion plant.

Don Stewart, the plant’s vice president, will replace him effective Monday.

Toyota broke ground on the plant in 2021 and plans a workforce of over 5,000 people. The company says it will begin production this year.

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Paul Garber

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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Leader of Randolph County Toyota plant steps down, new president named

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