Manufacturing is back. Factories are expanding, adding equipment,
hiring workers.
Here is one of the latest examples. Pridgeon and Clay Inc.,
an independent value-added manufacturer and supplier of stamped and fine
blanked components that feels good enough about the economy to make a $4.8 million
investment in its future.
The Grand Rapids-based company is adding four weld cells,
one CNC machining center and a large press to increase production capabilities,
along with hiring 16 new employees with an average hourly wage of more than $16
an hour. At least that is the plan submitted to Grand Rapids City officials
along with a request for a P.A. 198 12-year industrial tax exemption.
Good news, right?
How good is it going to get? Will we see the kind of
manufacturing employment that built Michigan after World War Two? It may never
be the way it once was in Michigan. Maybe that is for the best. That is yet to
be decided. However we can see that Michigan’s economy is more diversified now than
20 or even ten years ago. There was no choice.
We will explore those subjects, along with telling the
stories of the people who are at the heart of this economic rebirth in Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of
Manufacturing, an e-book that will be released in June 2012.
Rod
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