The owners of Vermont Castings say they’ve added 50 jobs in Vermont since purchasing the stove manufacturer last year.
The bulk of the jobs are the result of cutbacks in operations in other countries.
The company started making woodstoves in the 1970s at its foundry in Randolph. It also manufactures barbeque grills and kitchen products.
The company has been bought and sold several times over the years, most recently last August when the The Vermont Castings Group’s Kentucky-based management team purchased it from a private equity firm.
After the purchase the new owners decided to close a plant in Mexico and return to the U.S. work that had been outsourced there and to China.
On a visit to Vermont, CEO Ricardo Leon said the decision to repatriate the jobs resulted in 40 additional positions at the Vermont Castings Bethel assembly plant.
Leon says the decision makes sense in spite of lower labor costs in Mexico and China.
“You have to take into account supply chain and, freight costs and you have to take into account costs of quality,” Leon said. “ When you’re not there every day, you don’t have the same control over it, so we took a very holistic approach to what we manufacture.”
Leon said from a marketing standpoint the company is betting that consumers will also respond to the decision.
“If they’re facing the decision of buying a product and one of the items on the list is made in America versus overseas, it will swing the scale. That’s the bet that I made,” he said.
Leon says Vermont Castings also added 10 jobs at its Randolph foundry as a result of increased demand for its products. With the noise of the machinery and the glow of molten metal, the foundry looks like a scene from the heyday of the industrial age.
Foundry General Manger Bob Wright says 80 people currently work in the foundry. He says the average annual salary is in the $30,000 to $35,000 range.
Vermont Castings currently has 200 employees in Vermont and 400 in Kentucky.
