SPRINGFIELD – Flexible Teflon hoses from Titeflex’s Springfield factory flew on the Space Shuttle, fly now on new Airbus and Boeing jetliners, and carry glue in the machines that churn out disposable diapers.
Hurt, like many manufactures, by the recession and slowdowns in the automotive industry, Titeflex is hiring again, a message company officials shared this week when they gave a tour to U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield.
Once courted by economic development officials in South Carolina, Titeflex used $4 million in investments from its parent company, British-based Smiths Group, and a local tax break to update its equipment to cut down on pollution and tear down unwanted and unused space that was costing more than $100,000 a month just to heat in the winter.
“Our company’s other operations are in Laconia, N.H., and in Portland, Tenn.,” said Peter J. Letendre, director of operations for Titeflex. “This operation could have gone anywhere.”
Titeflex has been here since 1956, taking over space once used by Indian Motocycle and the U.S. manufacturing operation of Rolls-Royce. Titeflex makes hoses for the modern Rolls-Royce aircraft engine.
Titeflex’s employees have been with the company an average of 22 years.
“It’s hard to move that work force and it takes a long time to develop this skill set and make new workers productive,” Letendre said. “If it was at all possible we needed to keep this operation here and grow it here.”
Titeflex’s city tax incentive is expected to save it $300,000 over 12 years. Of the $300,000 in savings, $104,000 of it came this year in the first year of the agreement.
In return, Titeflex promised to keep 103 jobs here. The company now has 120 employees, up from just under 100 workers a year ago. And it is hiring, Letendre said. Workers start at $16 an hour.
Letendre said he sometimes has trouble finding people ready for a manufacturing environment.
“They might have worked at Wal-Mart or McDonalds, but they don’t understand what It takes to manufacture, for example how important it is to minimize scrap,” he said.
Neal visited the plant in support of a set of federal tax incentives that encourages the purchase of natural gas-fueled vehicles. Titeflex makes fuel lines for those vehicles.
“You are a good story,” Neal told workers assembled on the factory floor.
“It’s been a big growth area for us,” said Henry “Hank” Ziomek, director of sales for Titeflex.
Ziomek also traveled to Washington recently and testified on behalf of the natural-gas incentives before Congress.
He said the cost of natural gas works out to about $2 for the same amount of energy in a gallon of gas. Fleet operations like taxi cabs, city buses and garbage trucks are moving toward natural gas.
“Eighteen wheelers can work on it. it’s the only way to get over the Rockies in an 18 wheeler that’s not Diesel,” he said.
Neal said natural gas is available from this country.
Ziomek said its important for Titeflex to have a diverse set of customers. It sells hoses to the conventional auto industry including Volkswagen, Ford and Chrysler as well as aircraft, the space program and manufacturing like those diaper-making machines. Titeflex’s products start off as a Teflon powder, Ziomek said. It gets heated and extruded into a tube. That tube can’t handle pressure like the natural gas in those buses and trucks. It needs an “overbraid” of stainless steel or Kevlar woven quickly by a machine with whirring spindles.
The design grew from machines built in the 1920s to make shoelaces, Ziomek said.
Congressman Neal Visits Springfield's Titeflex Facility
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