It's a promise of more jobs. Seagrave Fire Apparatus of Clintonville announced it's working on plans to expand.
The company manufactures fire trucks. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, Seagrave built 54 fire trucks in record time to help rebuild New York City's fire department.
A year's worth of work is paying off for both Seagrave and the surrounding community. Seagrave is expected to break ground this month or next for a large expansion as it unveils a new line of fire engines.
Seagrave Fire Apparatus president Jim Hebe showed off the company's newest line of trucks Monday, which are roomier for firefighters.
"You have to be able to build a lot of room for firefighters," Hebe said. "This is set up for two in the front, four in the back."
He said the line will create more than 100 new jobs including manufacturing and supervisory positions.
"One job in our plant creates three to four to five jobs somewhere down the road, so the spillover effects of a job in manufacturing has a tremendous impact on the local economy," Hebe said.
He said the hiring process is underway and new customers will soon add to the growing company.
The last year was a slow time for the industry as a lot of states and municipalities struggled with budget deficits and fiscal cutbacks. Now a rebound is expected, which means the new lineup of fire engines comes just in time.
"You can't put a price on a human life, and a lot of people are looking and saying wait, our stuff is 20 and 30 years old, let's update now. It's a big buyers market," Terry Smith, a Seagrave dealer, said.
"Since 9/11, everything has gone more towards the rescue side, the fire truck side of it, keeping our communities with more equipment and better equipment," dealer Bill Lawson said.
Hebe says Seagrave will be ready to offer that better equipment within a few months.
But, Hebe said, "There's nothing easy about this. This is a zero sum game in our business. So what we take, we are going to take from someone else. This is not an industry that is growing."
