IKO roofing cuts ribbon for new plant near Hagerstown
An international roofing company gave clients and some nearby leaders tours of its new “flagship” facility around Hagerstown Thursday then cut a ribbon to mark its opening.
“It’s initially of its sort for our enterprise,” Derek Rate, supervisor of corporate communications for IKO, said of the facility.
“We manufacture distinct styles of flat roofing items in Canada. But this one’s definitely exciting simply because it’s our entry into the U.S. business market place. And this plant will have the potential, when it is really entirely operational, to support the Jap Seaboard and maybe beyond.”
IKO can make roofing, waterproofing and insulation generates for household and commercial works by using. The firm was founded in 1951 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and has been family-owned for 4 generations. It operates far more than 35 plants and employs about 4,000 individuals throughout North The usa and Europe.
IKO invested some $70 million to grow and transform a former RadioShack warehouse off Western Maryland Parkway into its newest producing and warehousing facility. About 40 men and women now work at plant which has a official address of 160 IKO way.
‘First of its type for IKO’
“It is really pivotal for IKO, mainly because it is the begin of our growth in the U.S. market,” mentioned Person Tremblay, the firm’s vice president of North American operations.
IKO tends to make singles, like the roofing products normally observed on houses and other household qualities.
It also tends to make roofing for flat-roofed business structures, such as merchants, warehouses and other services. All those roofs are typically engineered units that use an insulation board with a leading ply to supply weatherproofing, Tremblay mentioned.
“This plant is producing the insulation board and the major ply, which is a polymeric membrane, which is new for us. It is really the initial of its sort for IKO,” he claimed
That one-ply membrane is thermoplastic polyolefin, recognized as TPO.
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The Hagerstown facility provides in uncooked materials that are saved in silos and pumped to huge devices that turn people into rolls of TPO roofing. The thickness can be altered relying on the application.
The plant also makes the insulation panels, which can be cut to different lengths and manufactured to diverse thicknesses.
The products are moved from the producing area to a warehousing segment of the exact building, wherever they are saved in advance of remaining transported.
The plant has been building those solutions for the past number of months, but the corporation officially celebrated its opening Thursday.
‘Our flagship’
CEO David Koschitzky thanked IKO workforce, prospects and local company and government leaders for their enable in bringing the job to fruition.
He said that, in about a few weeks, the business will be at one more celebration to mark the renovation of its facility in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.
“I want to say that to the individuals from Hagerstown, due to the fact that’s not seriously a grand opening. Which is a reopening,” he stated.
“We developed that original plant 60 many years back. We have been quite blessed to be part of that community. (We) truly feel like we reside there. And it’s our hope and our intent that we will have the same extended-expression encounter in this article in Hagerstown. We thank you for welcoming us in the way that you have.”
IKO is a long-time supplier to the household roofing marketplace in the United States, the firm has noted. IKO opened its very first U.S. asphalt shingle crops in Delaware, Illinois and Ohio in 1981.
“We’ve made a extremely large imprint in the residential business,” Koschitzky mentioned. “And with this, our flagship in this article we be expecting to start carrying out the similar matter in the industrial organization in North The us.”
Mike Lewis covers organization, the economy and other challenges. Comply with Mike on Twitter: @MiLewis.