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Surprising Many, Miller-Holzwarth Closes Its Doors
SALEM, Ohio -- After 35 years, Miller-Holzwarth Inc., a manufacturer of vision equipment for combat vehicles, has shut its plant at 450 W. Pershing St.
On Monday, employees were notified that the plant would close at the end of the business day. Phone calls to the company's office Tuesday evening were not returned, but a former employee who asked not to be identified confirmed the closing, saying it wouldn't be official until Friday.
The company employed some 45 to 50 employees, two of whom had worked there more than 40 years and seven more than 30 years, the employee said.
Miller-Holzwarth is a government contractor that made periscopes, ballistic glass and transparent armor for combat vehicles. The president of the company, Jennifer Moll, said in an interview (January 2012 edition of The Business Journal) that its line of nondurable products would keep the company in business.
"All of the equipment that [the military] has in the inventory today, they will continue using until at least 2025, which means they’ll have to keep using our products," Moll said in January. "Given the nature of our products, they're not a Timex. They don't 'take a licking and keep on ticking.' They break, so we will be spending at least the next 15 years replacing our product."
In 2005, Moll succeeded her father as president, who helped found the company in the 1950s making hospital beds. It later switched to aerial photographic equipment. In 1962, the company built its first periscope.
Each periscope is specifically designed for use on lightly armored combat vehicles, including those used in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as an M113A2 used by the Alliance Police Department's special response team. The department received the 12-ton vehicle in 2008 from the Department of Defense's law enforcement support office. All eight periscopes on the vehicle had been damaged. Miller-Holzwarth built and donated 10 to the department at no charge.
Reuters reports that the U.S. Defense Department faces $500 billion in budget cuts, starting Jan. 2, over the next decade. Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, the Pentagon looks to cut spending by $487 billion, the report said. In an analysis for the Aerospace Industries Association, George Mason University reports that the spending cuts would cost the economy 2.14 million jobs, reduce the gross domestic product by $215 billion and decrease personal earnings of the workforce by $109.4 billion.
The U.S. Labor Department said military contractors don't have to send out layoff notices because specifics of the cuts haven't been released. The notices are part of the WARN law -- Worker Adjustment and Retaining and Notification – Act. It requires most employers with 100 or more workers to provide notice of at least 60 days before a layoff or plant closing. Should the notices have been sent out ahead of the budget cuts, Reuters reports, workers would receive them just before the general election Nov. 6.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.