Catalina Tempering Georgia:
Leading glass fabricator finds high-flying convenience and quality in Cook.
In 2013, as Catalina Tempering made plans for a new manufacturing facility, one location requirement was clear: For this leading commercial and architectural glass fabricator, fast and convenient access through corporate air travel was a necessity. With a nationwide client base and a network of 11 manufacturing plants stretching from California to Texas to Ohio to North Carolina, corporate leadership required the utmost maneuverability and speed.
“We won’t even consider a location for a new facility unless it has the ability for our corporate plane to fly directly to the city where our facility is located,” Catalina COO Denis Jasmer said at the time.
Today, Catalina’s corporate jet makes takeoffs and landings with ease at the Cook County Airport, and at Catalina Tempering Georgia, a staff of approximately 30 are hard at work at the company’s 189,000 sq.-ft. Adel facility, creating glass products of beauty and strength for the residential market.
Meanwhile the beautification and expansion process at Cook County Airport continues apace. Leveraging more than $1 million in federal rural development loans and grants, Cook County is transforming its FOB airport with a $5+ million upgrade. Already, a sleek and inviting new lobby, waiting areas and pilot's planning area have been completed, with construction almost completed for the addition of 26 hangars.
While the airport upgrade helped attract Catalina to Cook County, over the longer term the company has also enjoyed Cook’s other logistical and location advantages, like fast, cost-effective trucking of products along I-75. Plant General Manager Mike Harris notes that the facility’s strategic location “just off the off ramp of I-75” has helped to “create cost savings that we’ve been able to pass along to our customers.” It has also allowed the company to expand service to smaller customers who can “back right into the plant” for pickup.
Workforce quality has been important, too. Catalina is known throughout the industry for its meticulous craftsmanship and high standards of excellence, a challenge the Cook Catalina team has embraced. “From a production standpoint and from a work ethic standpoint, the quality of the labor force here is tremendous,” Harris says.
Catalina has also discovered that Cook is a county ready to work. When production expanded to include a second shift, “we were able to fill the shift with personnel from Cook County in less than a week,” Harris points out. And as the operation continues to aggressively expand he looks forward to future gains from sharpened skill sets. “We expect the quality of the workforce will help us grow strategically.”
Clearly, the bond between Catalina and Cook is not unlike Catalina products: Looking great, with the inner strength to last.
That’s not so much an advertising claim as it is a simple statement of fact when it comes to Colombo North America’s Rotary Peanut Combines. After all, these imposing harvesters not only yield an impressively low rate of impurities and field losses, they are also the only combines on the market to offer Axial-Flow systems. That means these maneuverable machines are real dynamos in the humid conditions that make peanut crops thrive—and other combines wilt.
As the largest Brazilian manufacturer of harvesters for peanuts, edible dry beans, and components such as PTO drive-shafts and U-Joints, the Colombo Group brings more than 40 years of experience and expertise to the task of combine manufacturing. And in 2006, when it came to the task of picking a North American location to expand the company’s manufacturing and sales operation, that same meticulousness and knowledge came into play when the Colombo Group chose Cook County. Nestled in the heart of America’s peanut country and with its own rich tradition of agricultural quality, Cook offered a number of advantages in location and workforce that complemented Colombo’s own goals and mission.
Colombo has already risen to the top of the industry through competitive advantages that include engineering expertise, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and a high-quality workforce producing the finest harvester and also providing the best technical service and active support. The Colombo North America headquarters and manufacturing facility in Adel has allowed the company to continue and extend that legacy in a market hungry for Colombo quality. Today, Colombo customers span the Southeast, throughout Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
Leandro Santos, President of Colombo NA, explains, “Cook County is an outstanding place to do business. The Cook County Economic Development Commission goes above and beyond expectations connecting us with the resources and incentives of a large county with the courtesy and pleasantness of a small town. That’s why we "Buy Cook, Live Cook, Serve Cook.”
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