Editor’s note: This article is by Keith Whitcomb Jr. of the Bennington Banner, in which it was first published Feb. 19, 2015.
BENNINGTON — Plasan North America will close its Bowen Road plant and move to Walker, Michigan, after its contracts run out in July, the company’s president announced Thursday.
The announcement came almost exactly a year after Plasan Carbon Composites announced that it would be closing its Bennington facility and moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“One of the reasons we are taking this action is so that we can move closer to PCC and hopefully leverage some of the synergies we have there from a standpoint of staffing, engineering, purchasing, human resources, those type of things,” said Keith Rayborn, president of Plasan North America. “It’s an economic-driven decision. With the decline of the defense budget, especially hard in the ground vehicle market where we’re a participant, the market just hasn’t recovered.”
Plasan North America and Plasan Carbon Composite share the same parent company, but because PNA works with classified federal defense contracts, it maintains a separate entity from PCC, which makes carbon fiber parts for vehicles.
Rayburn said the company has been working for the past two years to remain competitive.
“But at the end last year we just realized the fact that the market isn’t going to turn around for another two years, so it was just not possible for us to continue to operate the way we were, so this is the solution we believe will allow us to relocate PNA and hopefully be more competitive and be able to sustain the business when the market turns around in 2017, 2018.”
The plant employs between 62 and 65 people, Rayburn said. Plasan leases its 222 Bowen Road facility, and owns 78 Bowen Road, which has been on the market for about a year. The area lost 143 jobs when Plasan Carbon Composites closed last year.
The pending closure was announced to employees Thursday morning.
“There is a comprehensive severance and incentive bonus package for all employees, including the temporaries,” Rayburn said. Some employees will have the opportunity to relocate, he said, but those details are still being worked out.
Local employees will be notified of the new job postings in Michigan before anyone else, Rayburn said.
“We are not closing today. We see production running through the end of July, so it isn’t an immediate impact. All of those people will be given a 60-day notice prior to their final day,” Rayburn said.
Plasan plans to work with the Vermont Department of Labor to assist its employees in finding new jobs.
“We’ll assist them in any way we can,” he said.
The efforts will be comparable to what PCC did when it closed, working with the state to host job fairs, offer training, and assist with job searched. The State of New York will also be involved, as some PNA workers reside there.
Plasan North America makes parts for Mine-resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, and others. Rayburn said awards for new programs won’t be until July, but even then it will be two years before they go into production.
“And when it does kick into production, it won’t kick in at the same levels that everybody anticipated because we’re reducing the size of the army and things like that, so they are things that are outside the control of the city of Bennington, the state of Vermont,” said Rayburn.
The Walker, Michigan, facility will have 70,000 square feet of manufacturing space, he said. “The number of people will depend on the level of business at that time, so we are going to grow it slowly. We’re only going to bring on those people we need to bring on to deliver the product so we don’t recreate this situation,” Rayburn said.
The decision to move was not made until late last year, he said, and was not finalized until recently. The lease with the Michigan facility was only signed last week. Rayburn said the economic situation was the sole driver behind the move.
“This was not something we wanted to do, because this is a capability that we have here that we’ll have to replicate somewhere else, so it was a tough decision to make,” Rayburn said, adding that the current employees have done excellent work and efforts were made to keep the plant in Bennington.
Lt. Gov. Phil Scott said he would work with lawmakers to help those who will lose their jobs.
“This announcement is yet another clear sign that we in Montpelier must put our full focus on not only protecting, but on growing Vermont’s economy and face the reality that we are competing in a regional, national and global marketplace,” Scott said in a news release. “We cannot continue to blame “forces beyond our control” for our job losses, but turn the mirror back on ourselves and ask ourselves: “What can we do to change the direction of this trend? How can we make Vermont better?”
Contact Keith Whitcomb Jr. at 802-447-7567, Ext. 115.
