Postle Aluminum expanding

Published 9:36 am Thursday, September 11, 2014

For a second time in a little more than a year, Postle Aluminum in Cassopolis has received a Michigan Strategic Fund grant to expand.

Last June, Postle, which is headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, received a $400,000 grant for on-the-job training as it invested more than $12.6 million to expand its Cassopolis plant, which is located on Edwards Street.

The newly announced expansion will create 40 full-time jobs over the next two years as Postle, a producer of extruded aluminum products for recreational vehicles, is investing another $10 million to expand its Cassopolis facility.

In 2013, Postle build a 52,000 square-foot building adjacent to its current facility to accommodate an additional service to their customers of a wet-coat paint line.

The company has been meeting both its compliance obligations and its job-creation milestones for the 2013 grant.

Last year’s expansion caught the eye of Gov. Rick Snyder, who toured the facility and turned a shovel full of dirt during the ground breaking ceremonies.

“It is great to see you expanding and growing,” Snyder said last July. “It’s exciting to see you growing because one of the messages I’m really proud of and we need to get out to more people is made in Michigan. We think we make things really good in this state; we’re the world’s best. So we want to get that message around.”

Postle Aluminum extrusion facilities feature state-of-the-art extrusion presses ranging in size from 7 to 9 inches that enable them to provide a wide array of both standard and custom extrusions. Postle can precisely regulate material flow to provide consistency from run to run, even on the most challenging “thin wall” profiles.

Postle facilities are managed by a senior management team with more than 100 years of collective experience in the aluminum industry.

The village of Cassopolis will support the expansion by waiving utility connection fees of $10,395.