Armstrong to restart production at port plant
Published 12:00 am Saturday, March 20, 2010
Armstrong World Industries will restart veneer production at its Port of Vicksburg plant in late April, a spokesman at the company’s Lancaster, Pa.-based corporate office said Friday.
The hardwood manufacturing plant had closed and cut 124 jobs in January 2009 as part of downsizing associated with the recession and the housing market collapse.
The restart is expected to employ 77 people, said Beth A. Riley, vice president of investor relations, communication and diversity, in an e-mail response to inquiries about recent activity at the plant.
“We are posting the available jobs through the state job service and Express Employment Professionals temporary agency,” Riley said, adding the Vicksburg operation will supply two engineered wood plants in Statesville, N.C., and Somerset, Ky.
Shutdowns cut 600 jobs at the global producer of flooring products and ceiling systems’ plants in Vicksburg, Jackson, Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Tennessee during 2009. The company had said when the Vicksburg closing was announced last year that it could be temporary, depending on market forces.
Worldwide employment at the company dropped to 10,800 in 2009 from 12,200 in 2008 due to declines in sales volumes, according to the company’s annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At year’s end, Armstrong operated 36 manufacturing plants in nine countries, with 22 in the U.S.
Armstrong World Industries purchased the Vicksburg plant in 2006 from Capella Wood Floors, which was started by Anderson-Tully Co. in 2000.
Two new businesses opened at the port in 2009, Five Stars Lighting Ltd. and Vicksmetal Company. Replacement of the access bridge to industries at the port is expected to continue until 2011, when a new, wider E.W. Haining Road bridge will be able to handle greater volumes of trucks. The current structure will be dismantled.
Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com