Phillips shutting auto-supplier facility
PHILLIPS, WIS.- Custom injection molder Phillips Plastics Corp. plans to close its Medford, Wis., plant and consolidate that work at its facility in Phillips.
``Our Medford location serves the automotive industry,'' said Chief Operating Officer Brad Wucherpfennig in a news release. ``Just like so many other suppliers to this market, we have experienced a sharp decline in activity coinciding with the auto industry's troubles.''
However, the company is stable, Wucherpfennig said.
The closure will eliminate 146 jobs in Medford and is slated for March and April, according to local news reports. Wucherpfennig said a large but unspecified number of jobs and precision decorating equipment will be relocated to Phillips.
The news comes about six months after Phillips said it was laying off 28 workers at the Medford site. Imports of interior parts factored in that decision, one report stated.
Phillips employs about 1,500 in 14 locations around the United States. The molder has annual sales exceeding $260 million.
ABC Group's Mike Schmidt dead at 78
TORONTO — Mike Schmidt, co-founder of the sixth-largest blow molding company in North America, died at his home Jan. 10.
Schmidt, 78, and two partners launched Toronto-based ABC Group Inc. in the late 1960s after the Yugoslovia-born Schmidt emigrated to Canada in 1956.
The firm started off as a blow mold and equipment manufacturer, then evolved into actual blow molding. Nearly all its sales are industrial and encompass industries such as automotive, lawn and garden and chemical packaging.
Schmidt received SPI Canada's Man of the Year award in 1982 and served as the group's chairman in 1994. In recognition of ABC's automotive technical blow molding work, he received the 1997 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Society of Plastics Engineers Blow Molding Division.
Schmidt was known among co-workers as a visionary with the ability to rally people around a project. He worked right up to his retirement in November 2008.
Schmidt leaves his wife of 55 years, Helga, and two children.
Dow shutting down one Styrofoam line
MIDLAND, MICH. — Dow Chemical Co. is closing a Styrofoam production line in Gales Ferry, Conn., eliminating 20 jobs.
Midland-based Dow had planned to convert the polystyrene foam line to a new blowing-agent technology, but that move has been postponed indefinitely because of the struggling building and construction market, officials said in a Jan. 15 news release.
Styrofoam production at the plant will stop by the end of 2009. Dow will continue to use the site as a distribution and shipping center for Styrofoam made at other locations, spokeswoman Rebecca Bentley said. After the closing, Dow will have seven Styrofoam production lines remaining in North America.
Separate Dow units will continue to produce PS resin and styrene butadiene latex at the Gales Ferry plant.