Just one month ago, in my blog “A Good News/ Bad News Week In Indiana And In The Nation”, I wrote about the huge layoffs that had taken place at the Pfizer plant in Terre Haute, Indiana, adding six hundred citizens to the ranks of the jobless. As a consumer bankruptcy specialist and bankruptcy attorney in Indiana, I know only too well that layoffs are one of the biggest factors leading to bankruptcy, and that Indiana needs to get people back to work.
Well, last week brough some really good news about the opening of a Boral Bricks plant twelve miles south of Terre Haute. According to the Indianapolis Star, the Indiana Boral plant will be the largest such facility in the nation, and will employ 50 full-time workers.
Boral Bricks, by the way, is an Australian company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and the plant here will make enough bricks every hour to build two all-brick homes. Importantly, Boral is a very technologically advanced company, using “green energy” and recycling all scrap materials and waste water. Boral actually uses waste materials from neighboring coal mines in their manufacturing process. Since Borat uses robots, the workers will not be doing heavy lifting, but will be used for more skilled tasks.
Then, I learned, another manufacturing company is set to open a large facility in Terre Haute this spring. CertainTeed, which is a construction materials manufacturer based in Pennsylvania, will employ 145 people.
What these pieces of good news say to me (I’m a student of all things that can affect my bankruptcy clients in Indiana and their families, as well as all of us as citizens of the state) is first of all, Boral Bricks and CertainTeed are modern manufacturing companies doing global business, so there are not likely to be layoffs and job displacements at either plant in the foreseeable future. Second, it means that Indiana is beginning to attract interest as a center for modern manufacturing.
I can’t help but think that, as folks work on rebuilding their financial lives after bankruptcy, the growth in manufacturing activity in our state of Indiana and the resulting job and business revenue opportunities should turn out to be “a good thing”. This news sounds good not only for my clients around the state, but for all of us in Indiana!