OEM Fabricators: Celebrates 25 years with expansion and plans to hire 100

For more information: Mike Smith, VP Sales/Marketing, OEM Fabricators, Inc., 715-698-2111.

SEPT. 19, 2011 | WOODVILLE, WI | At its 25th anniversary party in September filled with prizes, face painting, a clown, dunk tank, DJ and a BBQ buffet, OEM Fabricators Inc. had many reasons to celebrate including record growth, a 12,000-square-foot expansion at Woodville, growing operations at Neillsville, plus plans for a satellite operation in Prentice to open in October and plans to hire more than 100 new team members.

Some 700 people attended festivities held in Woodville on Sept. 10, and 250 attended an open house at the Neillsville facility the previous day.

“We’re growing by leaps and bounds,” says Jim Hauschild, co-founder of the company who returned from retirement to assist in the operations ramp-up and oversee the addition of machine shop space in Woodville. “We’ll be putting about $3.5 million into new equipment and have added a fourth shift. We are continually looking for good team members, who are the lifeblood of our company.”

Hauschild, who retired in 2006, has spent his retirement volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and has been involved with the construction of homes in the area for families in need.

Hauschild and Mark Tyler, OEM president and co-founder, were honored by team members at the Woodville party with a plaque that said “Presented to co-founders Mark Tyler and Jim Hauschild celebrating 25 years of building a business based on integrity, respect, and honoring relationships with Team Members, their families, business partners, and the community.”

OEM’s team members are the reason for the company success, said Tyler, who spoke of how the company chose to locate Woodville back in 1986 because of the strong community support and enthusiasm. “Throughout our history, the company has always been about family and community. When times were tough, and we’ve had to go borrow money, sometimes more than we were worth, it has been our families and our team members that gave us the confidence to move forward. We’ve been blessed by the people who have joined our company – we have 370 team members and currently have 30 open positions. We have always shared with new team members that we expect them to make a positive difference in our company and in our communities, and they have never let us down,” he said.

For the past several years, OEM has continued a pattern of strong growth with its diversified approach to serving customers and its one-stop shop for design, fabrication, manufacturing and finishing, says Tyler, who is also president of the Wisconsin Technical College System Board and a University of Wisconsin Regent. “OEM’s growth depends on our ability to find and recruit talented team members, that’s why we’ve always maintained close relationships with higher education in Wisconsin,” said Tyler.

OEM has celebrated several positive measures in recent years and months. Revenues are nearly double from last year and expectations are very good for next year, said Tyler. OEM’s fledgling micro division is gaining steam as well adding many new customers including some in aerospace, medical devices, precision optics, and musical instrument components.

To help drive growth and capabilities in its manufacturing operations, Kathleen Skarvan joined OEM as vice president of operations in August. Kathleen was previously president of a division of Hutchinson Technologies.

To support operations in Neillsville, OEM is leasing a facility in Prentice, Wis., to establish a remote welding cell employing 10 additional team members to support growing business volume. The Prentice facility is set to open in October. Plans are in place to add a plant manager at both the Neillsville and Woodville facilities.

In May, the company held a party for team members and the community in the theme of a New Orleans-style funeral to celebrate the “end of the recession” for their industry, said Mike Smith, vice president of sales and marketing for OEM. The company served jambalaya and the Baldwin/Woodville High School Marching Band provided the Dixieland jazz at that event. “We wanted to have an official proclamation for our team members, business partners and the community that that acknowledged that manufacturing has survived through soft times and it is now over,” said Smith.

Named the Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year, Medium Category, in 2007, OEM Fabricators Inc. is an ISO-certified one-stop job shop with facilities in Woodville and Neillsville that design, build and finish medium- to heavy-gauge components plus subassemblies and turnkey products. It offers design, fabrication, welding, machining, shot blast, painting and assembly, serving original equipment manufacturers in agriculture, construction, energy, mining, military, transportation and other industries. OEM Micro offers services in micro-fabrication, micromachining and high-end microscopy, inspection and methods. For more information visit: http://www.oemfab.com.