Thermosets fabricator Precision Innovations Inc. is setting up a second plant to tap into more of Wisconsin's skilled workers.
Precision has bought a 15,000-square-foot building in Rome, Wis., and plans to begin production there in October, according to Precision Chairman and co-owner Gregory Marx. The firm has run out of room at its original Germantown, Wis., facility and needs skilled labor - which Marx said is easier to find in the Rome-Adams County area than around Milwaukee.
``Adams County has a lot of paper mills,'' Marx said in a telephone interview. ``There has been a drop in that workforce, freeing up skilled workers.''
Precision already has invested more than a million dollars in machinery for the Rome plant. Purchases include gantry routers and computer numerically controlled, high-speed machining centers to make laboratory benches, hospital cabinets and similar products from phenolic composites such as those supplied by Trespa North America of Poway, Calif., and its parent company, Trespa International BV of Weert, the Netherlands.
Precision employs about 47 in Germantown and expects another 25 to work at Rome.
``Our people truly are machinists,'' Marx said. They need a combination of machining and computer skills to run machinery that is similar to that used in mold building. Some paper mills in the Adams County area have been bought by foreign companies and subsequently downsized, providing a good pool of skilled labor.
Marx said his business has been growing about 30 percent per year, but he wouldn't provide actual figures.