Mount Pleasant, Iowa - At a time when corporate America is shipping U.S. jobs to low-cost countries, David Hockenbrocht's publicly traded company, Sparton, is taking up this rural Iowa town's fight to keep its radio component manufacturing plant and 340 jobs.
The move is rare, leaders say.
"As tough as the road is in front of us, the hardest part was finding Sparton," said Jennifer Daly, the executive vice president of the Mount Pleasant Area Chamber Alliance. "We feel incredibly lucky."
Mount Pleasant leaders and Sparton, a Michigan electronics manufacturer, still face an enormous problem. Sparton must find enough work, through defense and commercial contracts, to support the plant.
Complicating matters, the plant's current owner, Toronto-based Celestica Inc., expects to have transferred the work to Mexico by January.
Mount Pleasant's battle is one that many American towns have fought unsuccessfully. Since 2000, the United States lost 2.3 million manufacturing jobs. Iowa has lost 34,000 of those.
Daly, Hockenbrocht and others estimate the loss of 340 Celestica jobs, about 4 percent of the town's 8,700 residents, would cut about $125 million in economic spending from the area annually. Already, the community is limping from the loss of 350 jobs from Blue Bird, the bus maker that closed in 2002.
Sparton and Mount Pleasant leaders are lobbying hard to drum up business.
"We want to become the poster child for saving American jobs," said Daly.
Several state and congressional leaders have joined Mount Pleasant's effort, pushing for meetings with U.S. Department of Defense officials about possible contracts. Hockenbrocht is taking his plea for work to other corporations.
Every day, every week, every month, a new economic-development plea crosses the desk of an American manufacturing chief executive officer.
The pitch usually includes a bargain-price piece of land, closed factory or speculative building, with executives urged to come make products and hire workers. Mount Pleasant, however, was different, said Hockenbrocht.
It offered a uniquely qualified work force that has won national awards for quality and productivity.
Mount Pleasant's plea made sense to Hockenbrocht. Sparton uses much of the same technology to make products for the U.S. Defense Department and aerospace, medical and other commercial clients.
"Here's a work force with an average of 18 years of experience in radio frequency" manufacturing, said Hockenbrocht. When he starts a plant from scratch, "it takes eight years to really establish a work force. Here's one that already exists."
For Sparton, it was an opportunity to add to its profits and add a plant. Sparton has seven in New Mexico, Florida, Canada, Vietnam and Jackson, Mich., where it is based.
All the 105-year-old company needed was to provide its expertise, time and money to find work for the plant and retool it, said Hockenbrocht.
He also feels strongly that America has too willingly given up manufacturing jobs and is sabotaging its future.
"When Mount Pleasant's request crossed my desk, I looked at that and said, 'It's time to do something,' " he said.
Mount Pleasant's radio-frequency technology is used to make products like cell phones and two-way radios. Hockenbrocht said the technology is key to communication equipment the Defense Department uses.
He hopes to secure sole-source defense contracts, which direct work to Mount Pleasant without competitive bidding, to get the $50 million needed to operate the plant.
Few know better than Daly how difficult it is to replace high-paying manufacturing jobs.
"Something else doesn't always come along, certainly not in southeast Iowa," said Daly.
"Or if it does, it doesn't replace the salary of the person earning over $18 an hour."
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