Longtime readers of this column know that I
constantly rail against the high cost of electricity in New York.
In ours homes, we pay $60 more per month for
electricity than the average American. At local factories and machine shops, we
pay almost twice what our out-of-state competitors pay.
That second factor is especially bothersome to our
economy, as it robs it of opportunity and jobs.
I know firsthand of that impact, because we’re
talking about an annual power bill in the $1 million territory at Confer
Plastics. The overpayment poses a serious competitive disadvantage and it has
limited our ability to acquire and retain business. Over our nearly half
century, we’ve lost out on some decent, high volume jobs for pennies on the
dollar, pennies attributed to what is our third-highest cost at the plant, and
one we really can’t control.
That has changed our business model over the years.
Our New York roots and our love for our coworkers who helped make the company
are strong. So how could we overcome New York’s higher costs, not only for
electricity but for a wide variety of factors, and keep them and others
employed? We adapted and rounded-out our
capabilities by investing in larger machines, which gives us the ability to
make things that very few can.
We hit a home run in that department last year,
with a private investment (that is, no corporate welfare grants utilized or pursued)
of $3.25 million in what is one of the largest blow molding machines in the
whole world. It’s on the short list in that category, maybe in the Top Five,
definitely in the Top Ten, when you look at a combination of shot size (it can
drop 150 pounds of material) and press height (it can make parts 15 feet in length).
That has allowed us to ramp up production in a variety of categories of
consumer goods and we’ve added dozens of jobs since the machine went into use.
Last week, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul and New
York Power Authority Gil Quiniones toured the plant to see the machine
affectionately known as “the Beast” and meet our team while announcing the
availability of 400 kilowatts of ReCharge NY power to help us mitigate the cost
of running the machine.
That electricity couldn’t come at a better time.
While we are trying to dominate the large-part niche
and are one of only a few to do so, we’re not alone. The same year we expanded
our plant, our single-greatest threat in the industry started building a plant
east of the Mississippi. They always operated on the West Coast but needed an
East Coast facility so they are closer to their and our existing and potential
customers, which takes away the very best competitive advantage we had versus
that competitor (shipping big things is not cheap).
2016 going into 2017 became a battleground. We
grow. They grow.
In order to beat that new, powerful threat and keep
Western New Yorkers working, that new machine of ours needed some semblance of
cost certainty and lower costs at that. NYPA obliged with the cheap power.
NYPA’s faith in our job-creating abilities is much
appreciated as was their ability to work with me and make this a go. After all,
I’ve been someone who has consistently put New York government in the crosshairs
over the dozen years of this column. They didn’t see me as a threat or a bother
in this endeavor; instead, they saw me as a partner in furthering the goals of
NYPA and the Niagara Power Project to use hydropower to make the economy grow
and keep hard-working folks gainfully employed here on the Niagara Frontier. Their
allocation of power gives us a chance to succeed now and well into the future.
In just a few years, we will have our fifty-year
open house for the general public and I will encourage you to see our awesome
machines and awesome people and get a feel for how a public-private partnership
like this can help small companies like ours survive in a dog-eat-dog business world.
From the 06 February 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers
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