Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9003300147
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Salem plant will become the El Cajon, Calif.-based company's new headquarters, Ed Couvrette, company president, said Thursday. Forty employees will continue to work out of the California office.
The company will begin limited operations in the new plant within 30 days. Couvrette bought the 120,690-square-foot Gardner-Denver building on Virginia 419 for $975,000.
"Our original plan was for a distribution center in the East. But the building was perfect for manufacturing, too," Couvrette said. "If we were to design a plant ourselves, we couldn't probably do much better than this building.
The size of the plant is just about right to grow into. This market is going to hit stride this year and the next coming years."
The 120-member work force will include about 20 employees - including plant manager Doug Shaw - who will be transferred from California by June, Couvrette said. He, too, will move to the Roanoke area but keep a home in California.
"Our focus is to set up an Eastern plant operation corner of our business without losing our West Coast business that we have," Couvrette said.
Employment at the Salem plant could reach 250 at peak production, he said.
The company will hire through the Virginia Employment Commission. Available positions include painters, welders, assemblers, marketing employees and office workers. Couvrette said the proposed wage rate is $6 to $12 an hour, which he considered "high paying."
The Couvrette company was started 15 years ago as a contracting firm. In 1981 it originated kiosks for ATMs. The company makes about 200 units per year and had sales of $5.5 million last year.
IBM and National Cash Register invited the company to develop their ATM delivery systems.
The company has worked with some of the largest banks in the nation as well as locally owned financial institutions such as CorEast, Signet and the Jefferson National Bank.
Couvrette promotes seven models selling for from $14,500 to $24,000 each. Housing systems for the sensitive machines require automatic environmental controls with monitoring controls for specific ranges of temperature and humidity.
Couvrette has units in 43 states including Alaska and Hawaii, and clients in Canada and several other countries. Eighty percent of its customers are east of the Mississippi, making an expansion to a central point such as the Roanoke Valley a natural move, Couvrette said.
The company opened a sales office in Salem last summer; it has sales offices in El Cajon, San Francisco and Atlanta and plans to open more in New England and Canada.
Couvrette said he was "immediately sold" on the Roanoke Valley community and expects his business to grow "many times" in the next couple of years.
"We looked in Richmond and Staunton but we found everything we were looking for in Roanoke," Couvrette said.
"Southern California pretty much set up an environment to run guys like me out. It's nice to come to a community and be welcomed."
by CNB