Gossen Acquisition Restores Jobs At Cartersville Plant

CARTERSVILLE, GA -- North America's largest integrated plastics manufacturer has purchased a PVC building products company with ties in Cartersville, allowing that Bartow County plant to reopen and save up to 49 jobs.

Inteplast Group has acquired Gossen Corporation, just 60 days after the 88-year-old company was placed into receivership by the Circuit Court for Milwaukee County and subsequently closed the doors of its Wisconsin and Cartersville plant "due to its financial collapse," Inteplast said Tueasday.

A total of 143 employees were laid off, 94 in Glendale and 49 in Cartersville. The Circuit Court approved today’s sale, which is expected to close this week.

The order issued Dec. 13 will allow Inteplast Group enough time to inform Gossen’s former workers of the opportunity to report back to the plants in time for production by month’s end.

The Cartersville plant is located at 10 Sugar Valley Road.

Director of Operations Kyle Hintze, who is in charge of both the Wisconsin and Georgia plants, has begun notifying his former colleagues and expects that most employees will return to work.

Inteplast President Dr. John Young said the purchase complements the group’s World-Pak division, which manufactures PVC building products such as decking, moulding, and trim at its Lolita, Texas, and Middlebury, Indiana, plants.

This division also produces silicone-coated release liners and other products for the roofing industry at its MTI Polyexe facility in Brentwood, New Hampshire. Inteplast operates more than 50 manufacturing facilities and is ranked by Plastics News as the second largest North American film and sheet manufacturer with sales exceeding $2.6 billion in 2016.

“Gossen was well known to us by name and quality," Young said. "Our hearts were drawn to this acquisition mainly because of the massive layoff affecting the livelihoods of 143 people and their families. It was imperative for us to get the bid done and quickly resume operations. We could have joined the liquidation process in order to save money, but at our expense we opted to restore full operations, mainly in deference to the many workers, some of whom had been at Gossen for more than 15 to 20 years. One office manager had worked at Gossen for 46 years, imagine this. Our hearts go out to the staff that made Gossen great. It’s the catalyst for us being proactive and bringing them back to work.”

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