Adding a site, employees: WEG Transformers is powering through the pandemic
WEG Transformers USA in Washington is not only surviving, it’s thriving during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re very humbled to be able to announce that we’re expanding at this time,” said Lacey Oswald, human resources director.
WEG, which makes electric transformers for utility providers, operates a factory that makes distribution transformers – the kind found in front of homes and businesses, usually encased in a green metal box – at 1 Pauwels Drive.
A power transformer plant – which makes the larger facilities you see enclosed in chain-link fences – is at 6349 Avantha Drive.
The two plants employ 465 workers, Oswald said.
“But we’re busting at the seams,” she said. “We’ve reached capacity and we’re about to open a third location.”
The new site, in the Heidmann Industrial Park, will immediately add about 50 new workers, Oswald said.
“I know it seems strange to talk about expansion in the middle of everything going on, but the need is there,” she said. “There has been a lot of talk about essential industries, but we really are an essential industry. When you turn a light switch on, you expect the light to go on. It doesn’t go on without a transformer doing its job.”
Oswald said the company has made some changes to react to the pandemic.
“We’re all masked up, and we’re washing our hands and disinfecting everything,” she said. “With the numbers going up in Franklin County, we’re proud to say we haven’t had any community spread within our plants.”
Instead of visiting the plant to watch the assembly of a transformer, which can cost $1 million or more, clients are now viewing the progress on visual conferencing, she said.
“We’ve found that maybe this is a better way of doing business,” Oswald said.