Mayor Bill Maness hit all the right notes in his comment on the impending closing of Haldex Saturday.
Time spent bemoaning the decision to chase cheaper wages in Mexico is time wasted, he said.
The plant and its highly trained, productive work force offer a marketing opportunity. Iola should start selling itself, its great location, its schools, its cultural and recreation facilities — and a manufacturing facility that can be revved up into full productivity in a very short period of time.
Iola’s Haldex plant once hired more than 500. Another sales point: A new owner would know from the beginning that expansion here would cost very little. The fire-sale price the plant will bring includes room to grow; it is a facility equipped with the infrastructure needed to handle a high level of production without additional investment.
A roster of the current work force that detailed job skills as well as years of service should be part of the sales presentation.
Iola is well-manned to tackle the sales job: Iola Industries, Inc., the Iola Area Chamber of Commerce, Thrive Allen County, the Iola City Commission and Allen County Commission will make up the sales team. The Kansas State Department of Commerce can be depended on to help, as can SEKAN, Inc. The bigger the team, the better.
Mayor Maness is logistics and inventory services manager at Haldex. He speaks about the value the work force has to offer a new plant operator from broad personal experience. And it is that experience which prompted him to say of the decision to close: “There is no ‘woe is me,’ there is only, ‘where do we go from here?’”
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
