CEO: State’s FastStart program succeeding

• Advocate business staff
• Published: Oct 26, 2009 - UPDATED: 3:55 p.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

The chief executive of Gardner Denver Inc. cited Louisiana’s FastStart program, which screens and trains workers for expanding companies, as a key reason for the company’s recent financial success. Barry Pennypacker’s comments came in a Friday conference call with analysts.

“We were able to accelerate the relocation of certain manufacturing cells from Sheboygan, Wis., to Monroe La., mainly due to the outstanding training support provided by the state of Louisiana, which has been integral to the success of this project,” he said.

Gardner Denver chose to close the Wisconsin manufacturing plant and transfer more than 200 jobs to a Monroe plant once pegged for closure. The company, which makes industrial pumps, compressors and related machinery, is closing seven facilities and eliminating 1,600 employees worldwide, but it’s expanding in Louisiana in part because the state’s economic development leaders convinced Gardner Denver that a new custom work-force program, FastStart, could successfully expand the Louisiana operation, which had employed about 80.

Pennypacker said the company’s operating profit margin is up 3 percent and the company expects to save $40 million this year from its reorganization.