Ice and snow removal company opens in Fulton

Anyone who has lived in Missouri knows that the weather is anything but predictable and that winter brings its own set of problems.

“When we talk about having bad weather from the county and state’s standpoint, these folks get excited they say that’s a season,” said Doc Kritzer, Callaway County Associate Commissioner.

A national ice and snow removal company opened a remote plant Tuesday morning in the state of unpredictable winter weather.

The plant is in Fulton and its the first plant Henderson Products Inc. has in Missouri.

Henderson Products headquarters in Iowa, and has remote plants as far away as New York.

The new Fulton plant is its sixth in the country.

President of Henderson Products, Marty Ward, said the company already has a contract with the Missouri Department of Transportation.

“It made sense here, particularly with the Missouri Department of Transportation contract, is that there’s a rider where any municipality within the state of Missouri can purchase snow and ice trucks off the contract.,” he said. “So to us it made sense that we could have a workforce here, we found facilities here, and we were able to get a skilled, dedicated workforce.”

Henderson Products builds custom snow plows, de-icers, dump trucks, anything that has to do with snow removal.

The chassies, or bodies, of the trucks will be shipped to the Fulton plant where workers will put the rest of it together.

Ward said the equipment is up to the demand of the Missouri market already.

So far, the plant has hired about 10 skilled employees to work at the plant.

“Over time we’re going to stabilize that workforce and get the skill sets up, and then as we do that we can continue to add onto it,” said Ward. “Ultimately we’re projecting, without knowing truly how long it’ll take, is to be approximately 30 people in this facility.”

Workers will have to be trained, given the specialized quality of the work at the plant.

County leaders have been involved in this project for awhile and its been in the works since December 2014, when Henderson Products approached the city to put a plant in a 5-year vacant building.

Kritzer said the new business and newly employed workers would bring new life to the local economy.

“That’s really what it’s all about, trying to keep people in the community, bringing people in on it that will make Fulton their home and then can shop both in Fulton, Jefferson City, and Columbia,” he said. “For every dollar that gets invested, it turns over about seven times so it’s a big turnover on it and we’re certainly glad to have somebody here and not a vacant building.”

Kritzer believes having the plant Fulton garners a sense of pride, especially since the trucks are made almost from scratch and right at home.

MoDOT has already commissioned about 60 trucks.

The first rolled out to Holts Summit Tuesday morning.

Ward anticipates the plant could probably construct about 300-400 trucks per year at the Fulton plant.