Windshield manufacturer tops 1,000 workers at ex-GM plant in Moraine

Associated Press

MORAINE, Ohio

Hiring by a glass products company hit an important milestone, topping 1,000 jobs at the site of a former General Motors Co. plant in southwest Ohio.

The number of people employed at Fuyao Glass America Inc. in Moraine is now more than the number of people General Motors employed when it ended operations at the same factory eight years ago, the Dayton Daily News reported.

The windshield-manufacturing plant employs about 1,100 workers, and the company has a goal of employing about 1,600 people, though employment at the plant could reach as high as 2,000 workers, company vice president David Burrows said.

The plant ships finished automobile glass to Hyundai and is preparing to send glass to Chrysler and General Motors. It has also started aftermarket glass shipments to Safelite. Dealing in aftermarket glass, a project announced last year, resulted in plans to hire 750 more people at the plant.

The company has also started its second plant expansion that will add more than 100,000 square feet onto an earlier 120,000-square-foot expansion, Burrows said.

After General Motors left the 4.5-million-square-foot plant, Moraine officials immediately tried to get other employers into it, said City Manager Dave Hicks. He said the success of Fuyao at the plant is noteworthy and has invigorated the city.

“They have exceeded every goal they have set, every standard they gave us,” Hicks said.