Vital & FHR North America had a ribbon cutting on Wednesday for their new, state-of-the-art facility in Bowling Green. (Alex Holwerda | Sentinel-Tribune)
By Alex Holwerda
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
Vital & FHR North America, a combination of two firms that responded to customers’ needs to diversify and localize their supply chains in the United States, opened their new, state-of-the-art facility in Bowling Green.
The milestone was celebrated with a ribbon cutting ceremony, tours of the new facility and light refreshments for guests. The new facility is in the old Wall Street Journal building at 1201 Brim Road.
The building was purchased in November and construction began February , with construction being completed about two weeks ago.
“From floor to ceiling, we removed over 2 million pounds of metal. We also poured in concrete on the building’s south side where the gas and dust collectors are located,” said Bruce Dulin, operations manager.
Vital Materials is a global leader in specialty materials and processing, while FHR specializes in vacuum coating equipment.
Vital & FHR North America currently has over 7,000 employees worldwide in 17 different countries. The Bowling Green facility will employ around 60 people.
The company provides a coding service used in the power generation field, which will provide production and equipment support for customers in renewable energy, semiconductor, and other high growth markets.
“We will be providing our big customer (Bloom Energy) some 10,000-15,000 parts a day, roughly 50,000-60,000 parts a week,” Dulin said.
“It was a good economic reason to move into Bowling Green. We found local resources that supported what we wanted to do.”
Dulin also noted that even if the company did not receive any new orders next year, they are still backed up to two years’ worth of work.
Vital & FHR North America is made possible by the hard work and dedication of the employees, vendors and their families, Dulin said.
“Not only for the public, but more importantly, to recognize the hard work that the vendors and employees put in to open the facility this quick and efficient,” Dulin said. “It took a lot of people and a lot of help.”
