Baraboo, Wis.-based Teel Plastics LLC is adding extrusion capacity and increasing wages as part of a $5 million investment in 2022 with more to come next year.
In 2023, Teel will double capacity for gas pipe and telecommunications conduit at the Industrial Court facility that it opened last year.
The company is seeing increased demand for both product lines, and it will rent another 230,000 square feet in addition to the 180,000 square feet it already uses.
Some equipment for new gas pipe extrusion lines already has been installed. These pipe products are utilized mostly for gas distribution for home heating and for industrial uses, Christian Herrild, director of growth strategies, said in an email.
The company is adding conduit capacity to fill orders for scheduled utility upgrades and expected investments in fiber infrastructure with COVID relief funding.
"The additional money from the infrastructure bill is not yet impacting our part of the market," Herrild said.
Founded in 1951, private equity-owned Teel extrudes and injection molds plastic products for medical, cosmetic, industrial piping, film core and water treatment markets.
To accommodate recent growth, Teel is increasing wages and ramping up its hiring efforts. The company raised its hourly wages by 10-15 percent across the board and now pays $19.10 an hour for starting day shift, 12-hour positions. Successful applicants with manufacturing experience start even higher.
Teel is looking to add 50 employees for pipe production and another 12 for clean room production.
The company recently added a clean room and new medical extrusion lines at its headquarters to bolster its presence in the medical device market.
Teel has been a key supplier of extruded and injected molded nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID test kits since the onset of the pandemic.
In October 2020, Teel was awarded a U.S. Department of Defense contract to expand swab capacity. The company bought nine new Arburg injection molding machines and two Davis-Standard extruders for swab production and added 50 additional employees.
To reward the success of the Teel team, the company recently launched an annual employee bonus program.
"We want to bring in the best people in the area, and our new pay scale and bonus program will help do that. We have a lot of exciting opportunities in front of us," Teel CEO Jerry Pritchett said in a news release.
The bonuses are based on overall company performance and production-specific goals for various segments.
"The production-specific segments are things like scrap goals, up-time targets, part production metrics or other areas where front-line employees can have a direct impact," Herrild said.
With $80 million in annual sales, Teel ranks 54th among North American pipe, profile and tubing extruders, according to Plastics News data.