April 28, 2021 at 4:47 p.m.
AirPro announces plant expansion plans
AirPro announces plant expansion plans
By By River News Staff-
Pending permit approvals, the employee-owned company founded in 2002 is planning to expand its two manufacturing facilities in Rhinelander, "adding capacity and team members to meet growing demand."
The planned expansions are scheduled to begin later this year and will increase overall plant square footage by 40% across the two factories, the company announced Tuesday.
"The additional space will serve all aspects of operations, including new production equipment, more production cells or work centers, and increased storage space for inventory and material handling," the company press release states. "The most recent expansion prior to this was the addition of the West plant in 2014, after expanding the North plant in 2012."
"This expansion represents hope and dedication to growth," offered VP of Operations Keith White, Jr. "It's an investment in our customers, our community, and our people. We're deeply committed to meeting demand, maintaining our high standards of quality and on-time delivery, and allowing great work-life balance for our colleagues. With the new space, we'll be able to add capacity with a simple staggered shift, which means everyone still gets to go home for dinner. That's really important to us."
As an essential business, the company stayed online and busy throughout the worst of the pandemic-related lockdowns in 2020, the release said. It has continued to grow despite the challenging economy and because of valued customers, trusted suppliers, and dedicated employee-owners. AirPro has been 100% employee-owned with an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) since 2016.
"Our ESOP model and consistent growth without significant turnover mean our retention rate is very high, yet we stay busy recruiting on a constant basis," White explained. "We draw the best and brightest engineers, welders, machinists, and more from within the Northwoods region and beyond.
This expansion will allow us to add even more skilled workers to our team in the next year or two, he added.
The company is in the permitting stage for the build-out. In the meantime, AirPro is hiring, with a number of positions currently posted on the website (https://airprofan.com/find-a-job-at-airpro/).
Founder and President Keith White, Sr. emphasized, "Expansions come when you meet or exceed customer expectations. The formula for success is quite simple. Assembling a group of people who work together to achieve such a vision is a blessing. I am honored to be a part of such a group."
AirPro Fan & Blower Company designs and manufactures industrial-duty centrifugal fans and blowers, offering a complete line of air handling products and accessories. It serves industrial OEM customers and end-users across applications and industries around the world, the release states.
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