Recently I met with Lynn Kuhns, President of Apex Homes, and
toured the Middleburg, PA factory. I was anxious to learn how Apex was doing
since coming out of bankruptcy. The company filed in January 2012.
What a wonderful surprise to see people working everywhere
around the plant, the production line filled and lots of modules in the yard
waiting for delivery. I had hoped to see a factory recovering from a bad spell
but found a factory that looked like it never missed a beat.
Like most East Coast factories, Apex ships a lot of homes to
NJ to help rebuild the shore.
Lynn, who has been with Apex for 22 years, was given the
President’s position by the Bankruptcy Court and when it was offered up for sale,
he put together the finances to purchase it on August 1st of this
year. I asked Lynn
if it felt any different the first day he walked into the plant knowing it was
his. He simply smiled, reflected on what I asked and said “yes.” He told me he
hadn’t noticed that until I asked him. That’s a sign of a good leader.
As he took me on a tour of plant we walked through the
kitchen cabinet plant. I didn’t know that they built all the custom kitchens
in-house. Beautiful workmanship and quality boxes make this one feature that
most factories do not get using cabinets made by a supplier.
Another point he made about modular construction was the inherent green features achieved. At a typical site built home there is usually at least one or two 40 cubic yard dumpster to haul away to the dump all the extra building materials. He showed me that after a full week's production, they only have need for one small dumpster, everything is either sent to recyclers or used within the factory.
When we finished up the tour, the last stop was to a typical
small central PA restaurant where everything is made from scratch. I pigged
out. I really don’t get back to PA enough.
Just like the restaurant, Apex Homes is a PA ‘made from
scratch’ treasure.
No comments:
Post a Comment