Work Progresses on New SSF Manufacturing Plant

“The rains did a nice job on us in January,” Kevin Meyer, Specialty Silicone’s president, recently told The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Those rains (as well as some other unforeseen obstacles) have pushed back moving day for the new building. Though the old structure has been demolished and the new building’s foundation has been laid, executives do not expect the facility to be ready until the first quarter of 2011.

Located on the company’s existing campus in Paso Robles, Calif., the new building will include clean rooms with special walls and flooring to reduce dust and keep products contaminant-free. “The clean rooms cost more than the construction,” Meyer noted in the Tribune article. He declined to provide figures, however.

The new two-story building will house administrative offices on the second floor and manufacturing operations on the first floor. It is designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) standards, incorporating such “green initiatives” as energy savings, water efficiency, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. While the new building will enable the company to meet a growing demand for silicone medical device components, it also will help the firm expand its manufacturing capabilities to include thermoplastics and combination products, executives said. “In the last few years we’d been thinking ‘where would we expand?’ ” Meyer explained. “We had several existing customers ask us, because they’re having problems with their existing [thermoplastics] vendors.”

Meyer intends to hire additional workers once the new facility is up and running. The company, which makes long-term medical silicone implants such as gastric bands and pacemaker leads, employs 220 people. In addition to its Paso Robles facility, the firm has manufacturing operations in Elk Rapids, Mich., and Tustin, Calif.