SHEBOYGAN, WI — Pentair Inc., headquartered in Golden Valley, MN, announced it will close its Sheboygan commercial and residential water-filtration units manufacturing plant by June 2009, eliminating about 350 jobs, according to a July 23 report in the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
“I would love to be able to tell you there is a specific reason,” Rachael A. Jarosh, Pentair’s vice president of corporate communications, said regarding the announced closure. “Certainly, it is not a reflection of our employee performance or their actions, but it is simply a senior management decision to improve Pentair’s overall manufacturing capacity and to better meet our customer needs while lowering our total cost.”
Jarosh said, “Part of what Pentair is facing, like many companies, is the weakness in the residential market, but in essence, this is just an opportunity for us to streamline processes and operations to make us more competitive.”
The work done in Sheboygan will be moved to other plants in the United States, Mexico and China. Some Sheboygan workers may be offered jobs at other Pentair plants, Jarosh said, noting that the company decided to make the decision public to give employees ample time to prepare for “the next steps in their lives.”
Workers leaving the Sheboygan plant Tuesday said they weren't surprised by the news, according to a July 23 Associated Press report in the Chicago Tribune.
