LONGMONT – A large Chicago-area manufacturer in the throes of a cost-cutting reorganization will close its 650,000-square-foot plant there and relocate a large portion of its operation to a 96,000-square-foot building in the Pratt Industrial Park.Binks Sames Corp.’s director of production, Jim Jacquemard, said the company will expand its existing Boulder County work force from 50 employees to 100 or 120 workers.
“It’s a massive increase,” he said.
Binks, organized in 1890, has had operations in Boulder County for about 30 years, with the Boulder plant in the past 20 years accounting for about 20 percent of the company’s $260 million in annual sales. The move will not affect the company’s Boulder research and development lab, Binks Research and Development Corp.
The company is a leading manufacturer of commercial spray-paint guns and pumps. Its largest market share is in the automotive market, though Jacquemard said “if it has a finish on it, we make the equipment for it.”
The company also manufactures products for appliance and furniture makers, as well as a line of artists’ airbrushes.
Binks employs more than 1,200 people worldwide, and the corporation includes 11 foreign subsidiaries.
In December, the publicly traded company announced the closure of its Franklin Park, Ill.-plant as part of a plan to reduce operating costs by $15 million in 1997. The company will drop 60 percent of its sheet-metal products and 50 percent of its standard spray equipment line.
“The transferred product lines will complement and mesh nicely with our current Colorado manufacturing,” Vice President Sam Culbertson said.
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