Great Dane employs more than 400 people at its Statesboro plant and brings more than $25 million in payroll to the Bulloch County area each year. Last week, it was named Georgia Manufacturer of the Year in the medium category, plants with 150-499 employees.
Gov. Nathan Deal presented the awards Thursday during the Manufacturing Appreciation Week luncheon at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta. Great Dane, the trucking trailer manufacturer, was nominated by Ogeechee Technical College, which each year nominates at least one manufacturer from its three-county service area.
Founded in Savannah in 1900, the company that is now Great Dane developed its first refrigerated trailer in 1940. This was also the first refrigerated trailer in the industry, said Brian Sage, Great Dane's current vice president of manufacturing. The company opened its 450,000-square-foot Statesboro factory, in Bulloch County's Gateway Industrial Park, in April 2012.
"We have deep roots in Georgia. ...," Sage observed in a news release about the Manufacturer of the Year award. "We chose this location because of the community support, the partnership with Ogeechee Technical College and its strategic location."
An international leader in the trailer industry, Great Dane is now headquartered in Chicago but maintains a corporate campus in Savannah.
A number of Great Dane employees were in Atlanta to celebrate receiving the award. Representatives of Ogeechee Tech, the Statesboro-Bulloch Chamber of Commerce, the Bulloch County Development Authority, Bulloch County's government, the city of Statesboro, and the Evans County Industrial Development Authority also attended. Several of the other agencies contributed letters in support of Ogeechee Tech's nomination of Great Dane.
Previous Manufacturer of the Year winners nominated by Ogeechee Tech were engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton, honored in the large manufacturer category in 2002, and architectural glass fabricator Viracon, in the medium category, in 2005. Both companies' Georgia plants are located in Bulloch County.
Boyer's design prize
This year, apparently for the first time, Ogeechee Tech and Bulloch County also had a winner in the Manufacturing Appreciation Week student design contest. Students around the state created poster art to promote Georgia manufacturing. Bethany Boyer, a seventh-grader at William James Middle School, was the statewide first-place winner among student artists in the middle school category, grades six through eight.
"We are very proud of Bethany!" said Ogeechee Technical College President Lori Durden. "She competed against hundreds of middle schoolers from around state and was selected as the winner. Her insight into manufacturing in Georgia and her artistic talent were a winning combination."
Boyer received a $500 scholarship check presented by the governor.
The Manufacturer of the Year 2017 winner in the large manufacturer category, with more than 500 employees, was the King's Hawaiian bakery in Flowery Branch, near Gainesville.
The Manufacturer of the Year winner with fewer than 150 employees was Grenzebach Corporation, an international maker of specialized equipment with a plant in Newnan. The categories are based on the workforce of the nominated Georgia-based location instead of overall company size.
Big ‘middle' day
With wins by a middle school student artist and a medium-size industry, OTC and Bulloch County had a large contingent at the luncheon.
"It was a wonderful day for our community," said OTC Vice President for Economic Development Jan Moore, who is also Statesboro's mayor.
"Manufacturing and the economic impact it has is vital to Statesboro and Bulloch County, and to have one of our manufacturers highlighted with only two others across the state is a testament to the cooperation that exists between Ogeechee Technical College and its industry partners," she said.
Great Dane employs a number of Ogeechee Tech graduates. Aspects of the college's welding program, in particular, have been geared to meet the company's needs.
"Ogeechee Tech and Great Dane have had a great partnership since day one, with Great Dane utilizing office space on the college campus before their plant opened, and thousands crowding the campus to apply for positions at the plant," Durden said. "Since then, Great Dane has contributed to the college, even giving a trailer to be used in the Commercial Truck Driving program."
Georgia manufacturing
In Deal's proclamation of April 24-28 as Manufacturing Appreciation Week, he said manufacturing makes a tremendous contribution to the state's economic well-being.
About 10,059 manufacturing facilities are located in Georgia, and they provide roughly 386,600 jobs, generating nearly $20.3 billion in wages and contributing more than $100 billion to the state's economy each year, according to the proclamation.
"Today we are here to acknowledge and honor those manufacturers who have won this award," Deal said Thursday. "But I want to say to every manufacturer here that you are an important part of the fabric of manufacturing in Georgia that keeps us all working in the right direction."
Cohosted by the Technical College System of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the 2017 awards selection and luncheon constituted Georgia's 23rd annual observance of Manufacturing Appreciation Week. This year's sponsors included the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Power and the accounting and business advisory firm Aprio, previously HA&W.
Ogeechee Tech and schools in Bulloch County also participate in a national Manufacturing Day each fall. The local industries that hosted about 100 eighth-graders for tours in October were the same three that have been manufacturers of the year: Briggs & Stratton, Viracon and Great Dane.