ConMet, a Swain County plant that produces plastic dashboard parts for 18-wheelers, announced in December a $13 million expansion that will bring 70 new jobs to the county by June.

“The big concern is that manufacturing is steadily leaving the country, and we are tickled we’re able to bring some back,” said Steve Norman, the plant general manager and a vice president with the Oregon-based company. “We wouldn’t invest this type of money if we didn’t intend to stay in Bryson City and continue to grow.”

The company’s Swain plant has an annual payroll of $7.9 million. Since it opened in 1995, the workforce has gone from 125 to 250, with 50 jobs added in the past six months and the number of workers expected to reach 325 by June. The company also has a Cashiers plant that employs 125.

ConMet executives cited cooperation from the local community as one of the deciding factors in expanding in WNC rather than overseas. The company received a $50,000 grant from Swain County, a $12,500 grant from AdvantageWest and a $50,000 grant from Duke Power. Southwestern Community College provides training to plant workers.

When ConMet executives called Swain County leaders to inquire about incentives, the county responding the following day with a pledge of $50,000.

“The horse gets out of the barn if you don’t close the door fast enough,” said Ken Mills, economic development director for Swain County.

Swain was able to respond quickly thanks to an industrial incentive fund established in the early 1990s. The county paid $25,000 into the fund annually during the 1990s, and it has now grown to more than $200,000. The grant to ConMet marks the first big payout ever deployed from the fund.

“If a plant needs immediate help or we have to respond quickly, we have the funds to do it,” said Glenn Jones, chairman of the Swain County commissioners. “You always have a little kitty there to help industries.”

ConMet executives said the county contribution was an indicator of Swain’s support for the company.

“If you’re spending $14 million and you pick up $115,000 in grants, that’s not the sole deciding factor,” said Norman. “Incentives don’t cause us to put a plant here, but it shows us the county is interested in our business being here. The gesture is what really means a lot.”

Extremely high unemployment rates in Swain County were a primary factor that attracted company executives to the area initially. Unemployment was nearly 15 percent, more than twice the national average, back in the mid-1990s. There would be no shortage of willing workers, company executives figured. Another factor on Swain’s side was the proximity to the Cashiers operation. The company also has plants in Etowah, Tenn., and Monroe, N.C. Executives could make rounds to all four plants in the same trip out from Oregon.

One factor in ConMet’s success is a profit-sharing arrangement. Employees are issued stock shares in Amstead Corporation, the parent company of ConMet. The shares are in addition to a 401-K retirement plan. The better the company performs, the better the stock does. Employees see a direct link between their performance the value of those stocks, said Norman.

“We emphasize in employee meetings that stock values are based on customer satisfaction and on-time deliveries,” Norman said. “As our company grows and expands and the company becomes worth more, employees see the advantage of that.”

Contributing factors

A program with Southwestern Community College also has been a boon to ConMet. Training provided by the college includes industry specific courses, such as AutoCAD computer designing, forklift operation, specialized machinery operation, and supervisor and managerial skill training. The college also provides all employees with their national “quality standard certification,” an important label in the manufacturing world. The certification means that all employees are trained in quality control and value-added labor.

“Every employee in the sequence knows their job description and how every task they do adds value to the finished product,” said Keith Corbeil, business and industry training coordinator for SCC. “For a buyer, they know their suppliers are in tune with their needs, and they know they will get the quality they order.”

A $12,500 grant from AdvantageWest, a regional non-profit economic development agency for WNC, is one of a dozen or more such grants given out in the 23 western counties annually. AdvantageWest doles out around $400,000 annually in incentive grants in the region.

“When we learned that there was the potential, only the potential for the Bryson City facility to be able to win an expansion, we wanted to be supportive and part of this recruitment package,” said Dale Carroll, head of AdvantageWest. A board of directors of 19 people approved the grant for ConMet’s expansion.

Keep on trucking

As a manufacturer of trucking parts, ConMet should do well in the coming years. The tractor-trailer business is in an upswing. America is increasingly dependent on the transport of goods via trucking. In addition, a new federal law limiting the number of hours truckers can drive will require thousands of new tractor-trailer trucks and truck drivers to be added to the nation’s highways. There are currently 1.4 million tractor-trailer trucks operating in America.

Since 1995, the company has gone from $20 million in sales to a projected $100 million in sales by 2005 between the two Western North Carolina plants. ConMet has five major customers that buy its dashboard parts: Volvo, Freightliner, Peterbilt, Kenworth and Mac.

The expansion includes a 95,000-square-foot building and 15 new press machines that make the various dash components. The new machines will allow the company to keep up with the newest look in truck dash boards, which are sleeker, smoother, more rubbery and less plasticy, and include fake wood-grain inlay. In addition to dashboards, the company makes consoles and sleeper compartment accessories.

“This is one of the few industries adding jobs in the U.S.,” said Ed Oeltjen, company president. “We see a good three years of solid economic growth in the industry before we see a slow down.”

The company employs 1,400 nationwide and does $243 million in sales.

Oeltjen said overseas locations for the expansion were considered. The company could have saved a little by going to China or Taiwan, he said. But several factors convinced the company to expand here. For one, it is easier for executives, accountants and supervisors to travel to the plant locations inside the U.S. The company also wanted to be close to its customers, which saves the expense of shipping the parts back to the U.S. and enables customers to easily visit the plants and inspect their order.

But Oeltjen cited two other reasons as equally important: a good workforce here and cooperation from the local community.

“Our philosophy is if you invest in the right equipment you can compete with the offshore forces,” said Oeltjen. “If we can make an expansion here, we’d rather do it.”