The closing will eliminate 205 jobs and end 56 years of firetruck manufacturing in Cortland County.
E-One Inc., which bought the company from the Saulsbury family in 1998, said the closing was a result of lean manufacturing initiatives, which have lowered overhead costs and created excess production capacity at its headquarters in Ocala, Fla.
The company plans to move production of all Saulsbury-branded stainless steel rescue trucks to Ocala by the end of the year, the company said Wednesday. About 150 of the plant's 205 employees will be offered jobs in Ocala, said Bill Carroll, general manager of the Preble facility.
Closure of the Preble facility, located 20 miles south of Syracuse, is the second E-One manufacturing consolidation this year. The company closed its remote aerial truck production plant in Ocala earlier this year.
Local economic development officials were waiting for bad news after E-One's parent, Federal Signal Corp., reported a $15.4 million drop in sales and a $4.3 million drop in profits in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year.
At the same time, the company reported an increase in its long-term debt and a decrease in its operating cash. It said last month it planned to focus on consolidations and cost-savings as a way to improve its finances.
Cortland County officials enlisted the state's aid in an attempt to keep the plant open. But E-One's corporate management rejected all assistance offers.
Saulsbury FireRescue was founded in 1948 by Fancher L. ``Sam'' Saulsbury, a former machinist and fire chief. The company opened a $3 million plant, headquarters, retail store and expansive training center in Preble in 1988, more than doubling the space of its previous plant.
Saulsbury built 10 trucks for the New York City Fire Department to replace some of the 65 the department lost in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
