In early January, James Kincaid led a tour of his two-story home in Green River.
“This is my daughter’s room,” he opened a door framed with walls painted a fresh white.
Just how big is the house?
“Freaking huge,” Kincaid chuckled. “It’s 2,100 square foot, I think it is.”
Perched on Kincaid’s 40-year-old head was a ball cap with a whitetail deer on it, similar to the one hanging on the wall.
“That's my wife's buck from Kansas,” Kincaid pointed to it proudly. “He is a typical 10-point.”
Big game is a family love. Kincaid and his wife visited Yellowstone National Park a couple years back.
“It was just absolutely beautiful out here, just absolutely amazing,” Kincaid remembered. “We made a goal that when she finished with her schoolwork, we was gonna move out here.”
And they did.
Last fall in their home state of Kansas, they packed up that 10-point whitetail and the family in a U-Haul truck. A thousand miles later, they unpacked in Green River, Wyoming.
They closed on their house Oct. 30, 2024. Kincaid said it’s the first home they’ve owned.
“It's ours, you know, we bought it,” he remembered telling his wife. “It was just an amazing feeling. We was excited.”
Kincaid was also excited about his new job.
“I was doing what I love to do,” he smiled. “I love to tear stuff apart and put it back together.”
Kincaid was a mechanic at Genesis Alkali. At the time, the Green River-based company was one of the biggest players in the global trona industry.
Kincaid worked on the equipment that brings the translucent mineral from where it’s mined underground to the surface. There, it’s refined into soda ash, a white powder that goes into everyday household products like glass, detergent and baking soda.
But just a few days after closing on the house, “They [Genesis Alkali] come out and they say, ‘Hey, we're doing layoffs.’”
Genesis laid off at least 30 workers. It said it was because of a global downturn in the market, according to Sweetwater Now reporting that the company referred Wyoming Public Radio to when reached for comment. Global market data showed demand for soda ash dipped in the latter half of 2024.
But for many, the layoffs still came as a shock. Kincaid was making $45 an hour, plus overtime, and the industry seemed really stable.
Southwest Wyoming boasts the world’s largest natural trona deposits, with four main companies taking advantage of it. For several years, state leaders have touted trona, hoping it’ll absorb some of the workers from the declining coal mine sector. In fact, soda ash is Wyoming’s biggest export, bringing in about $1.5 billion annually – twice as much as coal.
Trona only seems to be growing in Wyoming. The state sunk more than half a million dollars to help Genesis expand in 2022. That same year, the company hired over a hundred new workers, according to Sweetwater Now reporting.
“You know, when we was doing our onboarding on October 7, the HR lady kept asking me, ‘Are you gonna be out here for a long time?’ I said, ‘Until you fire me,’” Kincaid said. “And then two months later, it's like, here it is.”
When he got the 30-day layoff notice, Kincaid didn’t have time to grieve. He had a $2,100 mortgage to pay.
“Shoot, I think I was working 60, 70 hours a week, just for overtime. Just to make sure everything was covered,” he said. “There was a lot of long nights that I put in, just from November 5 to December 6.”
But when that December day came and Kincaid had no job, it sunk in.
“It wasn't the layoff that upset me the most,” Kincaid said. “You know, layoffs, I've been there before. But I wasn't 1,000 miles [away] and buying a new house.”
But did he ever think to leave Wyoming?
“A couple times, but my wife and I are stubborn enough that we're gonna make a go at it,” Kincaid laughed. “It's weird. It's just weird. Like I said, I absolutely just love it up here.”
Leaving would mean becoming part of Wyoming’s outmigration statistics. Data show the state is losing educated, working people faster than it’s gaining them.
Kincaid dug in. He was waiting for a very important date in October: his one-year residency.
“To get an elk tag for a non-resident, it's like $600 or something like that, but for a resident tag, it's like $50,” Kincaid said frankly. “I'm like, ‘I'll just wait.’”
Kincaid also hadn’t been at the job in Wyoming long enough to qualify for unemployment. So he passed the time applying for about 30 jobs, working side hustles and fixing up the new house.
His wife pitched in and found work. They’re trying to shoot their shot in Wyoming, as residents, with full-time jobs.
“I've seen some elk out there and everything, and it's just like, ‘Okay, your time is coming. Yeah, clock is ticking,’” Kincaid said.
That was early January.
Since then, two new trona mines near Green River are in the works. Another local trona company, Tata Chemicals, plans to shift from coal to nuclear-based energy to run their operations. At a January press conference, Wyoming’s Gov. Mark Gordon said the future of the state’s trona industry is “enormous.”
Pres. Trump is also championing the extractive industry, promising to increase production and ease permitting restrictions on new projects. Tata told WPR they’re “extremely excited about the Make America Great Again” plan, as they expect it to increase production.
It remains to be seen how Trump’s recent tariffs might impact trona. Another company that operates out of Green River told Reuters it’ll depend on retaliatory tariffs from other countries.
Meanwhile, the local union pushed to get laid off workers hired back with Genesis. The union said over the last couple months miners have trickled back in.
But Kincaid didn’t take the offer. In early March, Genesis was bought out by London-based WE Soda. Kincaid didn’t apply to work there either. Instead, he hired on with a different local trona company, Solvay.
“In my interview one of the things that they made sure that they brought up was they've never had a layoff,” Kincaid told WPR in an early April follow-up interview.
Kincaid is back doing what he loves – tearing stuff apart and putting it back together. But this time underground. Initially, that part made him nervous. But Kincaid said the balmy 78-degree underground temps are a welcomed reprieve from winter.
“We fill our water jugs, then we go get on the cage. It takes us down underground. We eat lunch down there. It's more like a family down there, because you know everybody takes care of each other,” Kincaid said. “We stay down there for 12 hours, and we come back up again. We go take a shower, and we come home.”
Kincaid’s wife also landed her dream job in neighboring Rock Springs. She’s in media marketing.
They’re in it for the long haul. Plus, that one-year Wyoming residency is closing in.
“I'm really hoping that I can draw some elk tags or some sort of tags so I can at least go hunting,” Kincaid said. “I'm kind of itching to.”
