Rutland Herald

On-the-job training

November 30, 2000

Legislators tour local businesses to see how they work
By DAMIAN PAGANO Herald Staff

Amid the din of a churning engine at OMYA and clacking mail-sorting machines at Experian Information Solutions, a group of Rutland County legislators learned the workings of local industry.

A tour of the OMYA and Experian plants Wednesday morning was part of a daylong bus trip to three major employers for county senators and representatives. The trip was sponsored by Rutland Economic Development Corp.

Dubbed "The Magical Mystery Tour" by REDC Executive Director David O'Brien, the trip was a chance for local lawmakers to learn how companies around the county work. All county legislators were invited.

"As a development corporation, we felt we should educate the legislators about the employers in the county," O'Brien said. "Not necessarily because we're looking to pass any laws, but it's just fascinating to me how people don't know what these companies do or who they are."

The tour started at 9:30 a.m. in the downtown transit center. Newly elected city representatives Carl Haas and Virginia Duffy and Rep. Fred Maslack, R-Poultney, boarded a bus along with several REDC members and headed to OMYA in Florence. They were joined on the road by Rep. Peg Flory, R-Pittsford, and Sens. John Bloomer, John Crowley and Hull Maynard, R-Rutland.

Along the way they also visited the Rutland Regional Medical Center and the Experian plant in Rutland.

"There's no replacement for getting out and seeing things firsthand," O'Brien said. "I know a lot of this stuff and I'm trying to give them the benefit of seeing what I see almost every day."

At OMYA, the group was greeted at the door by James Reddy, an executive vice president of Pleuss-Staufer Industries, OMYA's parent company.

He seated them in a conference room and neatly summed up what OMYA does for a living.

"We make fine white powder out of big white rocks," Reddy said. "That's what we do. It's pretty simple."

The group then toured the Florence plant - the third largest calcium carbonate processing plant in the world - and marveled at the technological complexity of the whole thing.

There were giant spinning wheels that refined the mineral, a filtration tank where impurities are taken out and water is added, and huge rotating cylinders where the calcium carbonate was ground into particles no larger than 5/1,000 of an inch.

"It looks like a toy that I played with when I was a kid," Haas said of the giant wheel. "Only a heck of a lot bigger."

After the OMYA tour, the group headed to the Rutland Regional Medical Center for lunch and a briefing of the hospital's role in the community and its plans for expansion.

The hospital is planning nearly $30 million in renovations, is seeking state approval for the process and hopes to have the job completed by 2002.

The hospital plans to build a new Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, increase the number of patient rooms and enlarge the emergency department - among other things.

RRMC has also expanded outreach programs into Castleton and other parts of the county, as well as in Ludlow at the base of the Okemo Ski Area.

It's also one of the area's largest employers with more than 1,300 workers and a payroll of about $42 million.

As the bus left the hospital parking lot at about 2 p.m., O'Brien said he got the idea for the tour from an economic development organization in Burlington. It is the second year he has invited lawmakers to tour some of the businesses that contribute to the local economy and plans to do it again next year.

The third and final destination was Experian Information Solutions on Seward Road in Rutland Town - the business formerly known as Metromail.

Experian produces "direct mail" or advertising letters sent in bulk to people by various companies. More than 2.5 million letters a day are sorted and stuffed into envelopes at the plant - which operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"It's a pretty remarkable amount of mail," said plant manager Dale Rector.

Experian receives printed ads and solicitations on bulk rolls several feet wide. The paper is unrolled, sliced and cut into letter-sized pieces. These are then folded and stuffed into envelopes that have windows for the recipient's address.

It's all done by machine, but many people are involved. The company employs about 300 people - most of whom work 8 hour shifts controlling the various machines stuffing and sorting the envelops.

The letters are then packaged and shipped out. Experian, Rector explained, is within a few hours' drive of 25 percent of the population of the United States and one third of the population of Canada.

After Rector explained what Experian is and does, the group was led on a tour of the plant's production area.

There the legislators could see the stuffing machines in action. Each machine can stuff 8,000 envelopes in an hour.

And after that tour, the day came to an end.

It was an eye-opening and interesting experience for the lawmakers, both the newly elected and the veterans.

"It was a great day," Duffy said.

Haas, an engineer, said he enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the companies.

"I thought it was great," he said. "I always like to see the way things work."