Caldwell County’s industrial sector suffered a setback Friday with the announcement that the Fontaine Trailer Company will soon be shutting down its Princeton plant.
Fontaine will close its military products unit in Princeton and move the operation to Jasper, Ala., said Dave Acker, president of the company’s Military Products Group.
The military division manufactures heavy-haul trailers for the U.S. Department of Defense.
It is one of four autonomous business units in the Fontaine company.
The company, headquartered in Haleyville, Ala., opened three new facilities in nearby Jasper in 2006.
The Princeton plant is being vacated in favor of those modernized facilities closer to the company’s other manufacturing sites.
Most of the transition will occur in the next three to six months, Acker said.
Between six and eight of the Princeton plant’s employees will be transferred to Alabama in support of the move, he added.
More employees are expected to be hired in Alabama to support the workload at the Jasper facility.
Fontaine had been in operation locally for about 10 years and had employed nearly 120 workers as recently as January.
By March, that number had been cut back to about 67; about 20 were still employed when the shutdown was announced.
“We’re devastated by the loss of this factory,” said Princeton Mayor Gale Cherry, who sits on the city-county industrial development authority.
The economic impact of the factory’s loss will not only affect Fontaine’s displaced employees, but will also hit the city’s tax base, she said.
The factory building off Ky. 128, home in the past to ITT Grinnell and Thompson Tanks, is a specialized facility that would be best utilized by a large industrial firm, she added.
The Pennyrile Area Development District and the West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board (WKWIB) may offer assistance to Fontaine employees displaced by the shutdown.
The workforce board was awarded $840,000 in state rapid response funds this week to provide assistance to workers rendered jobless by the closure of Johnson Controls in Cadiz.
A similar rapid response plan may be implemented in Princeton, the mayor said.
“We’re very concerned about the future of these employees.”
State Rep. Mike Cherry said he had spoken to representatives from the offices of U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning and Rep. Ed Whitfield to seek their assistance in dealing with the Fontaine announcement.
“While both offices exhibited concern and promised to look into it, I haven’t got the feeling that anyone thinks it can be turned around,” he said.
The company’s decision to close was announced only a few days after rumors about the closure began to surface.
“It was just two or three days before the official notice was given when I heard about it,” he said, “but knowing what’s going on in the economy, I can’t say I’m shocked.”
Fontaine is a subsidiary of Marmon Highway Technologies, a Berkshire Hathaway company.
