Stoughton Trailers to add 150 new jobs (Wisconsin)

The Wisconsin State Journal ^ | April 14, 2017 | Larry Avila, editor and business reporter

[2ndDivisionVet]

Customer demand for new equipment is keeping production lines so busy at Stoughton Trailers that the company plans to hire 150 more employees to keep up.

Ron Jake, marketing manager for the Stoughton-based designer and manufacturer of semitruck trailers, said Friday that recently secured large orders from new customers are behind the need for more workers. The company needs people for all of its operations from professional positions to crews to assemble trailers.

He said hiring will be done gradually over the next several months.

“We’ve grown 15 percent when you compare 2016 with 2015, and we’re on pace to grow another 15 percent in 2017,” Jake said.

STI Holdings and Stoughton Trailers, an operating subsidiary of STI, announced Thursday it had purchased 17 acres of vacant property across the street from its Brodhead production facility at 302 23rd St. Jake said the company had been renting the property since late 2015 to park finished new trailers awaiting customer pick up.

He said the company’s Brodhead facility is its highest-volume plant.

“If we get an order for 100 new trailers, it will go to Brodhead,” Jake said. Between its three production plants and parts and leasing operations, the company employs about 1,700 people.

Stoughton’s other production plants are in Stoughton and Evansville.

Jake said the decision to buy the property it had been renting in Brodhead “made sense for the company to do it now.”

“We want to control our own destiny when it came to that property and we see a need to have that space,” Jake said. The company has no immediate plans to build on the space but will continue to use it to store finished products.

The company’s investment was welcome news to Brodhead Mayor Doug Pinnow.

“We are happy to see such a great business choose to invest and grow in our community,” he said. Stoughton Trailers has about 450 employees in Brodhead.

Jake said the company does not refurbish trailers; everything it produces is brand new.

Earlier this year, the company opened a 15,000-square-foot expansion to its warehouse at 1112 Veterans Rd. in Stoughton for Stoughton Parts Sales. The expansion nearly doubled the existing warehouse space.

A semitrailer hauls an assortment of cargo and travels millions of miles during the course of an eight- to 12-year life cycle, Jake said. Some businesses may try to use trailers longer, but each company’s replacement strategy varies.

“Some older trailers get sold and are used for other things like long-term storage,” Jake said. “But to expect to get more than 12 years of use out of a trailer isn’t unheard of.”

[Slyfox]

I graduated from college in 2009 and couldn't find a job because businesses were laying people off, not hiring.

Thanks for nothing Obama.

[alloysteel]

Stoughton Trailers had a work force, that fifty years ago, spent just about all its time on strike, and apparently they STILL have a major gripe and grievance problem.

I did not know they were still in business.