Tilbury new home for state

A U.S. company has chosen Tilbury to be home to its first precision engineered stainless steel tubing manufacturing facility in Canada.

A U.S. company has chosen Tilbury to be home to its first precision engineered stainless steel tubing manufacturing facility in Canada that will bring up to 100 jobs.

The Municipality of Chatham-Kent announced in a media released Wednesday that Beloit, Wisconsin-based United Industries, Inc., is taking over the former Woodbridge Foam building and transforming it into a state-of-the-art production facility that will be the first of its kind in Canada.

United Industries, Inc. is the only North American manufacturer of high-purity stainless steel tubing in the one-inch to eight-inch diameter.

Manufacturing will begin immediately once the factory installation is complete, the municipality said.

The firm has also made significant investments in new machine technology that will allow development of the processes to make tubes from 10-inch to 16-inch diameter, which are poised to be the largest High Purity tubing diameters in the world, municipal officials added.

The tubing to be produced is best-in-class laser-welded and will meet the rigorous demands of the most stringent production environments, the release said. Some applications are extremely sensitive, such as in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries and require the highest level of purity.

"We are extremely pleased to be joining the Chatham-Kent business community and very appreciative of all the support we have received from Mayor (Darrin) Canniff and the entire region," Greg Sturicz, president of United Industries, Inc., said in the release.

"We chose the Chatham-Kent area for this key expansion due to its outstanding local workforce along with your civic leader's willingness to create a strong business partnership," he added.

A media call with senior leadership from United Industries is scheduled for Tuesday to talk more about the company's plans.

Canniff said economic development provides what he describes as a "concierge service" that includes having one person act as a point of contact for a company to deal with all internal matters within the municipality as well as help businesses navigate provincial and federal matters.

He said this is the company's first facility in Canada so economic development worked with United Industries to try to make the process as seamless as possible to locate in Tilbury.

"They could have located in a lot of places and they ended up locating here," Canniff said.

"This is a fantastic example of successful collaboration between a business, municipal administration, and the economic development team," said Jamie Rainbird, manager of Chatham-Kent Economic Development, in the release. "United Industries Inc. is an exciting development for the future of Chatham-Kent, and we will continue working hard to support them as they expand their business."

Rainbird told The Chatham Daily News he started working with the United Industries in May, adding the company had been working on the expansion long before reaching out to Chatham-Kent in making their internal business decisions.

But since then, he said, "It was numerous meetings on a daily basis, to the point where they probably heard from me more than some of their staff."

Rainbird has been impressed with the company from the start.

"They are fantastic people to deal with."

Rainbird said from the first time he spoke with the company, "they said they want to be an employer of choice."

Canniff said, "We are very excited that United Industries has chosen Chatham-Kent as the location of this significant expansion and investment. The product and the company's reputation as an employer are of the highest caliber."

He added Chatham-Kent "is in an excellent place to facilitate immediate success, and we’re very well positioned to support growth going forward."

The hiring process will begin as a phased approach, but once the factory is fully operational, it will generate as many as 100 local jobs, the municipality said. United Industries prides itself as a community-minded company and has also expressed an interest in sourcing third-party labour, such as tool-and-die, machining, and trade work from local employers, significantly increasing the economic impact of this investment.

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