Briggs & Stratton’s Statesboro plant, internally expanded last year to undertake a large part of the corporation’s V-Twin Vanguard engine production, has been named Georgia’s 2019 medium-sized Manufacturer of the Year.
The awards were presented Thursday during a Manufacturing Appreciation Week luncheon at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta.
“Today we honor some of the best, most advanced manufacturers who have been thriving here in Georgia for years,” said Gov. Brian Kemp, who gave the keynote address.
Companies such as Briggs & Stratton, he said, “have created jobs, proven their commitment and are critical to our state’s prosperity.”
Ogeechee Technical College nominated Briggs & Stratton for the honor.
“Briggs & Stratton has been a great industry partner for many years, and we are so proud for them to receive this honor. It is truly deserved,” said OTC President Lori Durden.
Community involvement and corporate responsibility are among factors considered in the selection process, along with economic impact and commitment to workforce development and excellence.
Briggs & Stratton and its employees have been major supporters of the United Way in Bulloch County. Employees provide leadership in various business and civic organizations, including Leadership Bulloch and the Kiwanis Club.
Briggs & Stratton has operated in Bulloch County’s Gateway Industrial Park south of Statesboro since 1995. The plant currently employs about 430 people.
The other two 2019 Manufacturers of the Year are Procter & Gamble’s plant in Albany in the large-manufacturer category and Erdrich USA Inc., at Dublin, in the small-manufacturer category.
Previous honorees
Ogeechee Tech nominates one industry each year. The most recent previous winner from OTC’s service area was Great Dane Trailers, for its Statesboro plant and also in the medium category, in 2017.
Briggs & Stratton was a Georgia Manufacturer of the Year once before, also through a nomination of its Statesboro plant by Ogeechee Tech, in 2002.
In his proclamation of April 15-19 as Manufacturing Appreciation Week, Kemp stated that 9,802 manufacturing facilities are located in Georgia, providing 406,602 jobs and generating more than $22.7 billion in wages.
Manufacturing contributed more than $61 billion to the state’s economy last year, he said.\
Briggs’ expansion
Early in 2018, Briggs & Stratton, headquartered in Wisconsin, announced that V-Twin Vanguard engine production, previously handled through a joint venture with Daihatsu in Japan, would be brought home to the United States. Specifically, the two-cylinder engines are being built at the Briggs factories in Statesboro and in Auburn, Alabama. The Statesboro factory was the company’s leader in the number of units produced but previously assembled only one-cylinder engines.
Under an agreement that also involved Ogeechee Tech, Georgia’s Quick Start program supplied customized training as Briggs began hiring last summer to fill about 100 added jobs at the Statesboro plant. Quick Start operates as a division of the Technical College System of Georgia and has its own instructors, independent of Ogeechee Tech and the system’s other colleges.
Leaders of Bulloch County and the state of Georgia helped ensure that the Statesboro plant “would be the place to make what we needed to,” James Suchovsky, Briggs & Stratton’s Statesboro plant manager, said in a press release provided by Ogeechee Tech.
Briggs & Stratton’s success in the 2019 award could not have happened “without the support from our state partners, Ogeechee Technical College and Georgia Quick Start,” said Amanda See, the plant’s human resources manager. “Quick Start has always helped us with training plans to ensure we have the skills needed to make engines. We look forward to many years of collaboration with Quick Start.”
Previously, Quick Start partnered with Briggs & Stratton in training projects in 1994, 2002 and 2013.
Week’s 25th year
This is the 25th year Georgia has observed Manufacturing Appreciation Week. The Technical College System of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Economic Development host the observance and awards, assisted by sponsors, which this year included the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Power, and Aprio.