Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Wednesday, Spartech Corp. held the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new product development center in its facility on Ind. 15N, Warsaw.
The ceremony was held in conjunction with the company's Annual Technical Conference. More than 230 Spartech customer representatives, local dignitaries, investors and suppliers attended the opening of the 30,000-square-foot facility.
Spartech invested more than $8 million in the PDC to complement the technical capabilities of the company's more than 5,500 customers and to accelerate the development of its new alloy plastics and product transformations. It is anticipated that as many as 1,500 visitors annually will come to the center to work on process improvement initiatives, new product developments and product transformations.
Brad Buechler, chairman, president and CEO, gave opening comments. He said, "With everything going overseas or south of the border, why invest in the United States? It's simple: Our customers are here, this is our home base and we believe in the American entrepreneurial spirit. The PDC is for our customers as we move forward. We're in only in the third or fourth inning and we plan to improve over time.
"Why Warsaw? First, it's close to a lot of our plants and customers and is central to the country. Second, we have an excellent draw from Indiana colleges and universities. We plan to hire summer interns on a regular basis with hopes of them becoming permanent employees. Warsaw is a family town -Êa good midwestern town. We prefer to operate in the comfort of smaller towns and cities rather than large metropolitan areas.
"We bought Hamlin Industries in 1996 and Royalite in 2000 and we're continuing with our investment in Warsaw with the addition of the PDC."
Hogue Patel, Sen. Evan Bayh's representative for northeast Indiana, said, "Sen. Bayh's motto is 'honesty, loyalty and competence,' which is similar to Spartech's mission statement. Sen. Bayh applauds Spartech's efforts to build the new $8 million facility here."
Joy McCarthy Sessing, executive director, Warsaw/Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce and president of Kosciusko Development Inc., said, "As president of KDI, I know that 80-85 percent of growth comes from existing companies. It adds to our tax base and employment."
Jim VanVickle is manager of the local plant, which employs 160 people in Warsaw. The corporation, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., employs 3,400.
The PDC team will work closely with Spartech's business partners to provide innovative product and process solutions, accelerate new products to market, optimize product formulations and complement customers' technical capabilities. Buechler said, "The PDC also will further enhance our ability to more rapidly develop new innovative alloy plastics that combine advanced engineered compounds and additives with innovative manufacturing techniques. It also will centralize our knowledge base for new developments and improve efficiencies by eliminating the development time spread throughout all our production facilities."
For more information, visit www.spartech.com
