A Waco, TX USA company with an international reputation for its truck-mounted hydraulic lifts is marking its 50th anniversary with a major expansion.
Time Manufacturing will spend $5.8 million to expand its facilities at Imperial Drive and Texas Central Parkway and add 121 jobs during the next four years.
City of Waco and McLennan County officials will vote Dec. 15 on giving tax abatements and a combined $200,000 in economic development incentives for the growing company, based on its employment and investment pledges.
“They are essentially bursting at the seams,” Waco economic development official Melett Harrison told Waco City Council on Tuesday. “Their strong preference is to grow here in Waco.”
The council took the first step Tuesday toward giving tax abatements worth $133,400 over seven years, with an additional $164,370 of new tax revenue coming into city coffers.
Time, which makes Versalift equipment used in telephone and power line maintenance, has quadrupled its business in the past decade to become a $200 million company, employing 421 people in its main Waco plant. The firm has locations in Denmark, Pennsylvania and Oregon but chose to expand production in its hometown because of its skilled staff here, company President Charles Wiley said.
“I’d ask you, ‘Why not?’ ” Wiley said. “It’s because of the work ethic and the folks we are able to get in Waco.”
Wiley has been with the company since 1972, when it moved here from Clifton with about a dozen employees. Co-founder Charles Turner had started the company to build lifts for a small telephone service his family owned in Palo Pinto County.
Today the company has a 300,000-square-foot factory complex, which will grow by 50,000 square feet in the expansion. The factory manufactures 20 to 25 aerial lifts per day, for a total of 3,500 to 4,000 units a year. The lifts are sold at dealerships throughout the U.S. and in Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia.
Over the years, the company has become increasingly vertically integrated, owning most of its supply and distribution networks. Time Manufacturing fabricates its own components to customer specifications from sheet metal, then assembles lifts and installs them on customer trucks. The lifts range in height from 22 to 220 feet.
The company buys its hydraulics from a Temple company and its boom arms from Waco Boom. Wiley said it is important to Time Manufacturing officials to do the work in-house or buy components from nearby companies they can trust.
“We’re putting people in the air,” he said. “So we have to have partners who understand what we do and the liability involved. We’re putting a guy up there to work on a hot line. If the fiberglass doesn’t work, that’s not a small problem. If a cylinder doesn’t work, that’s not a small problem. We can control the welding and how cylinders are made.”
Time Manufacturing is a primary customer for Waco Boom as well as for Diversified Product Development, which makes products for the utility industry, said Kris Collins, senior vice president for economic development at the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.
“They are a company whose corporate presence in the community has spawned additional companies,” she said. “Supporting their growth is a great way of supporting the additional growth of other smaller businesses.”
Collins said Time Manufacturing represents Waco well on the world stage.
‘Globally recognized’
“They are globally recognized as a leader in their field, and they continue to bring recognition to the community through their business efforts,” she said.
The international market has been a big part of the company’s growth in the past decade, now accounting for 25 to 35 percent of its business, Wiley said.
He said the company is finishing its second record year for growth, putting the recession of a few years ago behind it.
“When the buying confidence of the general public is suspect, that flows right through to a fleet manager with your local power companies,” Wiley said. “Some confidence has come back, but also, there comes a point where you can’t wait anymore (to replace equipment).”
The economic recovery also has created a challenge. As unemployment has dropped to a healthy 4.1 percent in the Waco market, Wiley said it is hard to find skilled labor.
But he said he has high hopes for Waco Independent School District’s new advanced manufacturing academy, which prepares students for high-skilled factory jobs. Time Manufacturing has contributed to the program with the donation of welding tables.
“We’re just excited that local institutions have gotten behind this,” he said.
Collins said Time Manufacturing has been an industry leader in job training.
“They have participated in skilled training for their employees, and they really have a company philosophy of trying to help individuals grow their educational attainment,” she said.
