Edward R. Wohlwender, CEO of POP Displays USA L.L.C. in Yonkers, offered reassurance to the city and state officials assembled recently in the lobby of his company”™s headquarters and manufacturing plant on Tuckahoe Road.
“We”™re happy to be in Yonkers,” he said. Will the employer of 615 workers in the city pull up stakes and relocate? “Absolutely not,” he said emphatically, repeating for his applauding guests what he earlier told the questioning press.
The company”™s compact with the city and state recently was reaffirmed with a $1.5-million investment in machinery at its 555 Tuckahoe Road plant and sealed with a $300,000 supporting grant awarded by the state”™s economic development agency, Empire State Development. Wohlwender said new molding, riveting and hot-stamping equipment will make POP Displays, a vertically integrated manufacturer of plastic point-of-purchase displays for merchandisers, more productive and more cost-competitive in a global market.
“We service most of the largest consumer packaging goods companies and retailers in North America,” said Wohlwender, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and former Army infantry officer who joined POP Displays as president and CEO in 2007. The company”™s largest customers include L”™Oreal, Walmart, CVS Pharmacies and Staples.
POP Displays in 2006 was acquired by Sun Capital Partners Inc., a private investment firm based on Boca Raton, Fla. The company traces its origins to the early years of the display industry; its founding partners began manufacturing wood and plastic displays in 1953.
In 2005, POP Displays invested $22 million to renovate the former Saks Fifth Avenue distribution center in Yonkers. It consolidated five manufacturing operations in New York City at the 435,000-square-foot facility, where employment rises to about 1,000 jobs in peak seasons. Mass-transit commuters from city boroughs make up about three-fourths of the company work force.
Empire State Development officials said the state grant will serve to keep the company”™s 615 full-time jobs in Yonkers and New York. Announcing the award at the Yonkers plant on Sept. 29, Dennis M. Mullen, ESD chairman and CEO, pointed to several workers who had left the production floor to welcome visiting dignitaries. “We”™re here because of you,” Mullen said. “It”™s a celebration of a company that”™s growing, of a company that”™s making money, but a company that”™s made a continued contribution to all of us in the state of New York.”
Wohlwender called the partnership with ESD “a significant blessing” for his company. “We have a lot of plans for growth here at POP Displays and quite frankly, we can”™t do it without the support of your office,” he told Mullen.
Mullen said businesses throughout Westchester County and the mid-Hudson Valley region supply raw materials and are part of the supply chain for POP Displays. He called the company”™s continued presence in Yonkers “a critical retention project” for the state.
“It”™s always less challenging to keep a customer than to get new ones,” Mullen said of his agency”™s efforts despite the deficit-burdened state”™s budget woes. “We”™re investing to make sure that companies like this continue to want to stay here and flourish here and compete with other businesses.”
The $300,000 grant to POP Displays was drawn from ESD”™s $35-million Downstate Revitalization Fund for capital investment. Mullen noted ESD”™s loan and grant investments in private companies generate revenue for the state by creating and retaining jobs.
“If we had done this decades ago, we wouldn”™t be as challenged as we are now,” he said.
