By David Robinson
The Buffalo News
HAMBURG, N.Y. — The former American LaFrance fire truck manufacturing plant in Hamburg is coming back to life.
The Camp Road factory, which closed more than a year ago after its South Carolina-based owner went through bankruptcy, is reopening under the direction of one of the founders of the R.D. Murray fire truck production company that eventually was acquired by American LaFrance.
The reopened factory will make stainless steel fire trucks for E-One, a Florida-based company that specializes in the aluminum trucks that hold the lion’s share of the fire-apparatus market.
The Hamburg plant offers E-One the chance to break into the stainless-steel end of the market, which account for about 20 percent of fire-truck sales and are more popular in the Northeast and other areas where corrosion from road salt is an issue, said William Savage, president of E-One New York, the entity that will operate the Hamburg plant.
“We are thrilled, not only to be relaunching our stainless-steel product line but to also offer a refurbishment and service location for our dealers and customers in the Northeast and Midwest,” said Peter Guile, E-One’s president and chief executive officer.
Savage, who was one of the founders of R.D. Murray in 1979 and served as general manager of the American LaFrance plant until he left the company in 2005, has been working since late last year to revive the local operation.
“I ran a business that was healthy and respected in the industry,” Savage said. “We’re trying to put something back together there.”
The company has hired about 15 workers and expects to boost its work force to between 20 and 25, primarily tapping former American LaFrance and R.D. Murray employees because of their skills working with fire apparatus and stainless-steel trucks, Savage said.
The local plant will rely on E-One’s sales force. “They bring the distribution to the table,” Savage said.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” said Michael Bartlett, executive director of the Hamburg Industrial Development Agency, which approved $306,000 in property tax breaks for the project, in addition to sales tax savings.
“Any time you can take a building like that, which has gone dark, and turn it around in a few months, that’s great,” Bartlett said.
With the economy still soft, Savage believes much of the initial work at the Hamburg plant will be to refurbish fire trucks, with orders for new trucks expected to grow as the economy improves.
E-One, which is based in Ocala, Fla., was acquired two years ago by private equity firm American Industrial Partners from its previous owners, Federal Signal Corp.
For more information on E-One, visit the company website.
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