Plastic Ingenuity to build manufacturing facility in Tooele, create 96 new jobs

A plastics company will place a manufacturing plant in Tooele and add up to 96 jobs over the next 15 years.

Plastic Ingenuity Inc., based in Wisconsin, made the announcement after being approved for a nearly $1.24 million tax credit incentive from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED).

Founded in 1972 in a garage, the company is a family-owned, vertically integrated company that controls every aspect of the manufacturing process with in-house design, extrusion, mold-making, tooling and thermoforming. It serves the food, healthcare and retail markets.

The Tooele plant will be its seventh in North America. Existing manufacturing takes place in Cross Plains and Mazomanie, Wisconsin; Oxford, North Carolina; Maumelle, Arkansas; and two sites in Mexico.

“And we are very happy to have Tooele be No. 7 for us,” Tom Kuehn, the company’s president, told the GOED board.

“We chose you because we felt like you did a lot of things to prove that you really wanted us to be part of your community. All of our plants are in smaller towns. We like the culture there, we like the people there, and we’re excited to be involved in another community of this size.”

The technology education offered in Tooele “is outstanding, and we’re going to need to take advantage of that as well,” he said.

“The state of Utah and the city of Tooele went out of their way to make us feel welcome. You did way more than any other site location to prove that you were the right place for us. We’re truly excited to become a part of your community and really want to be a big part of that community.”

The new jobs at the $70 million project are projected to pay an average of $57,000. New total wages are projected at $86.7 million over 15 years, with new state tax revenue expected to be nearly $8.3 million over that period.

“Plastic Ingenuity has been searching for the right location to accelerate our growth for quite some time, and we believe we have found the ideal match in Tooele, Utah,” Sakif Ferdous, chief marketing officer of Plastic Ingenuity, said in a prepared statement.

“We investigated municipalities in seven different West Coast states, and Tooele stood out as having the right combination of access to a well-trained employee base, strong public education system and a business-friendly environment.”

Tooele Mayor Debbie Winn said landing the company was a team effort involving GOED, Gov. Spencer Cox, the Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah) and the city.

“We are just thrilled and pleased and very grateful to have you locate in our community and look forward to having you join us,” she told Kuehn during the GOED board meeting.

“Plastic Ingenuity is growing at a rapid pace, and we’re glad they have chosen Utah to help with the growth,” Dan Hemmert, GOED’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “We’re excited to see this project come to Tooele and the opportunities that will be provided by its growth.”

“This project involved one of the top site selection consulting firms in the country, and their requirements were considerable,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of EDCUtah. “We can’t say enough about how professional, thorough and detailed the response of the city of Tooele has been throughout this process, and the governor stepped in to add his backing for the project. It’s gratifying to welcome a growing, family-owned enterprise that services many of Utah’s strategic sectors.”