CertainTeed Chowchilla facility celebrates 35 years
Employees, families and local officials gathered Sept. 13 to mark the 35th anniversary of CertainTeed Corp.’s Chowchilla manufacturing facility. As part of the celebration, 25 of the plant’s 178 employees were honored for 35 years service with the company.
It all started back in the mid-1970s when CertainTeed had a vision and a need for fiberglass in the western United States. In November 1976, funding was approved for a preliminary study and land option for a West Coast plant. By September 1977, $46 million had been approved for the construction of the Chowchilla plant. The formal groundbreaking occurred in December 1977.
On May 15, 1979, the Chowchilla plant began production. A year later, in February 1980, a second production line dedicated to the production of loose-fill insulation was started. Since that time, the Chowchilla plant has earned a reputation as one of the safest, productive and most innovative insulation plants in the world.
The Chowchilla CertainTeed facility sits on 152 acres and covers 537,000 square feet.
The facility has produced more than 5.75 billion pounds of insulation since it began production. It produces enough insulation in one day to insulate 250 average-sized homes.
The plant’s furnace melts approximately 300,000 recycled bottles per day. The insulation produced saves consumers seven times the energy it takes to make it.
The plant uses enough electricity in one day to power 180 average-sized homes for one month. It also uses enough natural gas in one day to heat 9,000 average-sized homes for one month. The plant has a self-contained water and sewage system, and is a zero-discharge facility.
Millions of dollars are spent locally with contracts and suppliers each year for raw materials, maintenance and improvement projects.
The plant primarily ships product to states west of the Rocky Mountains. However, the company has shipped its products all over the world.
This year, Saint-Gobain, CertainTeed’s parent company, inducted the Chowchilla plant into its Millionaires Club, which recognizes manufacturing facilities with more than 1 million man hours without lost time due to an accident.
Through the responsible development of innovative and sustainable building products, CertainTeed, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pa., has helped shape the building products industry for more than 100 years.
Founded in 1904 as the General Roofing Manufacturing Co., the firm’s slogan “Quality Made Certain, Satisfaction Guaranteed,” quickly inspired the name CertainTeed. Today, CertainTeed is North America’s leading brand of exterior and interior building products, including roofing, siding, fence, decking, railing, trim, insulation, gypsum and ceilings.
Employees with 35 years of service were recognized at the celebration. They included: Jeffrey Curtin, Lisa Zurilgen, Gordon Nelson, Larry Cook, Gilbert Hale, Richard Welk, Troy Cook, Ernesto Macias, Raymond Stephens, Gary Stofle, Gus Maya, Bobby Wood, Frank Hernandez, George Yrigollen, Douglas Bump, Robert Macias, Herbert Damm, Roger Uribe, William Dismuke, Richard Giesy, Eric Kerbach, Michael Wallen, John Roam and James Turner.
This story was originally published September 25, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "CertainTeed Chowchilla facility celebrates 35 years."