AUBURN, Nebraska —
September 10 -- For a company that trains its workers to “Work like the
tortoise, not the hare,” local employees at Ariens Co. sure make quick work of
manufacturing outdoor chore equipment.
In the time it takes to
mow the lawn in front of the company’s plant in the middle of town, about five
riding lawn mowers roll off the production line inside — or one every 675 seconds.
“That’s from sheet metal
to a product you can ride out on,” said Cliff Barley, director of operations
for Ariens’ Auburn facility.
The Brillion,
Wisconsin-based company purchased the plant and business from Auburn
Consolidated Industries, which failed in 2007, and has hit a stride in the last
year. Employment and production have returned to historically high levels while
Ariens has worked to entrench itself among the greater Auburn community.
The company has
manufactured and donated equipment for two disc golf courses in Nemaha County.
Once a week, one of the plant’s manufacturing leaders leads a welding class in
Falls City in an effort that is equal parts workforce development and civic
stewardship.
And in late August,
company officials announced a $25,000 donation to complete development and
construction of a Nature Explore Classroom near the courthouse square downtown.
Auburn Mayor Scott
Kudrna said the plant has always been “a stalwart of the local economy,”
employing more than 200 people at its peak — but locals in this town of about
3,400 people have needed some convincing that Ariens would continue the
tradition of the 88-year-old business.
When Auburn Consolidated
closed briefly after going out of business in October 2007, it had about 125
employees. Ariens purchased it from financial stakeholders within a month of
the closure, but it has taken time to restore the plant to its former status.
“Auburn Consolidated
originally employed many more people than Ariens did and there was a lot of
apprehension because we were dealing with a company that no one knew of,” the
mayor said. “Families’ lives were shaken up by the closing and selling of the
company.”
Fast-forward seven years
and local employees are once again building outdoor power equipment. The zero-turn
mowers are among the largest products being assembled and shipped out by
workers here, and they’re also the newest.
Ariens officials in
September 2013 relocated the product line to the largest manufacturing plant in
Nemaha County from the company’s home base in Wisconsin.
Since then, employment
at the local plant has grown about 30 percent to roughly 200 employees. Total
production, meanwhile, has increased by more than 75 percent.
Now, the plant’s buzz
around town has attracted employees both young and old.
At an April hiring fair,
Barley said he recognized at least two former Future Business Leaders of
America members from Auburn High School, where the company also has been
engaged with teachers to help revamp the district’s vocational curriculum.
Kevin Raymond, the
district superintendent, said improving how the school’s instructors prepare
students for jobs is critical. That’s why it has also engaged with officials
from the Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper Nuclear Station — Nemaha
County’s largest employer ahead of Ariens — as well as Magnolia Metal Corp. in
Auburn.
“In the past three or
four years, we’ve tried to build those connections within our community,”
Raymond said. “Coming back here and making an impact in Nemaha County is now an
option (for students) where maybe it wasn’t before.”
That option has been
exercised by people who didn’t grow up in Auburn, as well.
Andy Whaley, a
44-year-old meatpacking industry veteran, moved back to the community about a
year ago and had been commuting to Council Bluffs for a job at Tyson Foods Inc.
A newspaper ad for
Ariens’ hiring fair in April enticed him to see what community members had been
buzzing about. He was eventually hired as the plant’s night shift manufacturing
leader.
“I remember starting in
the meat business years ago, and that pride in what you’re doing on the floor
was there,” Whaley said. “Here, every single person on the floor has that pride
and it’s a standard.”
That pride extends
beyond the walls of the plant’s manufacturing facility, thanks in part to both
the plant’s legacy and its renewed commitment to the greater Nemaha County
community.
The funds for the Nature
Explore Classroom — a program of the Nebraska City-based Arbor Day Foundation
and Lincoln-based Dimensions Educational Research Foundation — helped finalize
a project that was years in the making.
The company has
participated in local parades, and Ariens-built disc golf equipment was used to
establish courses both in Auburn and at nearby Peru State College.
Bob Engles, a local real
estate broker who was mayor of Auburn from 2002-10, said that kind of civic
engagement reflects Ariens’ own legacy of family ownership dating to 1933.
“The talk of the town in
2007 was that someone would buy (the plant) for next to nothing and sell the
equipment on a piecemeal basis and just leave us with an empty building,”
Engles said. “Because Ariens is family-owned, decisions were very quickly made
and we saw from an economic development standpoint that they wanted the
building and the equipment and to maintain all the jobs they could.”
Even though the
equipment Ariens manufactures is seasonal by nature — other lines include snow
throwers, leaf blowers and stump grinders — the company’s philosophy aims for
it to be anything but. It’s in the middle of an effort to maintain a fairly
static level of inventory to buoy employment levels at what Barley calls a
“sweet spot” of about 200.
“We keep our production
level with total demand throughout the year. That stabilizes our workforce,”
Barley said. “We don’t want to be that company that brings people in and whacks
them up seasonally.”
Cole Epley www.omaha.com
