Company Owners Enthused about Locating Here

MP Components of Grand Rapids, Mich., is a 31-year-old company started by Otto Schlatter and Larry Wiersma in 1973 as Model Pattern Co. with the purpose of making the highest quality models, patterns and prototypes possible.

"We build quality gauges and check fixtures for the automobile industry," said Joe Schlatter, vice president and general manager of MP Components at a press conference this morning at the Chamber of Commerce. "We check every automotive part that goes on an automobile."

Schlatter and his brother, John, both run the company their father started years ago.

"We also build equipment for assembling those parts," he said. "And we do data collections systems.

"We've been very successful, and we've led the way in Grand Rapids," he said.

Project Engineer Rollin Runge has been working with the company for about 25 years and will be moving here with the company expansion along with two other employees from the Grand Rapids location, Bryan Hans and Michael Hickey.

"They'll grow to 10 as soon as they can," said George Halford, chief executive of the Cookeville-Putnam Chamber of Commerce. "And to 40 to 50 within three to five years."

Salaries for the employees are estimated to be in the $14 to $20 an hour range.

"The key thing is how quickly they can attract skilled labor and how quickly they can train skilled labor," Halford said.

"They have a lot of customers in the automobile industry," he said. "It's critical for them to have a 'just in time' facility versus being 500 to 600 miles away."

"A lot of our business has moved to the Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky area," Schlatter said. "We have so many customers in this general area that we want to service, and we can't be at their beck and call in Michigan.

"We feel like this is a center spot for hitting a lot of home runs," he said. "We chose this place before we really even started to look."

Several Cookeville-Putnam officials were present at this morning's press conference to recognize the city and county's efforts to bring the new industry to Cookeville, as well as Matt Kisber, commissioner of the Tennessee Dept. of Economic and Community Development who came from Nashville.

"There's a buzz going around today, and it's not just about the elections," Kisber said. "This is a new industry that will bring high-paying jobs to Cookeville.

"This is exactly the kind of jobs this administration is trying to attract everyday," he said.

"There's no other company within 300 miles of this region that can do what this company does," Kisber continued. "Today's announcement represents the kind of strong economic development we've been trying to achieve," referring to Gov. Phil Bredesen and his administration.

Although plans have been in the works to bring the company to Cookeville since June, the Cookeville City Council and the Putnam County Commission both approved an agreement last month in which the city and county would pay the interest on a $311,000 loan for five years on a 10,000-sq.-ft. building for the company.

At the end of that five years, the city would sell the six acres the building will be built on to the company for $16,000 an acre and sell the building for the cost of construction.

One of the next steps in the company's expanding to Cookeville is awarding contracts for construction.

"They'd be here today if the building were ready," Halford said.

Halford said the company already interviewed two Cookeville-area construction companies this morning for building construction, but contracts have not been awarded yet.

"They're anxious to get down here and get started," he said.

And Halford was also pleased about the prospect that this new type of industry in Cookeville would also bring similar jobs to the region.

He said that only about 5 percent of the state's jobs are high tech, so the company's decision to expand to Cookeville is a big deal for the Upper Cumberland region.

"We've had the worst manufacturing recession," he said. "Most communities have lost 25 percent of their manufacturing base."

"These are the right jobs," he said. "This is the future, and companies will locate here because they're here. That's been what's happened in Grand Rapids."

Joe Schlatter concurred, saying, "Twenty-five other companies there do the same thing we do, and there were probably two when we started.

"This area has not been tapped," he said. "We're very comfortable with working with the colleges here. All of them have ways of bringing people up to speed."

Halford said, "They were impressed with our technical schools, Tennessee Tech and the public school system."

"They've got all this business," he said. "It's just how quickly they can get the people."