Sturtevant metal fabrication company Racine Metal-Fab Ltd. unveiled its new 75,000-square-foot facility at an open house on Thursday, June 6.
The company offered a tour and refreshments at the facility, which it moved into in February 2012. The space is now fully operational. RMF has grown from 54 employees in 2009 to 80 employees today.
The company’s growth has been driven by an expansion in its technical abilities, particularly in the work it does for the commercial LED lighting industry, said President Scott Lucas.
“I think we have good expertise for what’s needed, and that’s really why we’ve grown,” he said.
The company has gained new customers with the functional and aesthetic metal parts it makes for LED lights. Its engineers work on reducing glare while controlling and reflecting LED light off the metal surfaces.
“The better you can do with that optimization, the better you can do in the marketplace,” Lucas said. “We’re very technically knowledgeable about working with specialty sheet metal.”
RMF also makes medical equipment, appliance parts and solar reflective parts. The new building, which cost $7 million, sits on 14 acres the company purchased at 1520 Grandview Parkway to make room for further expansion. There’s room for the building to grow to 250,000 square feet. Lucas plans to expand within the next two to three years.
This year, RMF has invested $1 million in new machinery and equipment to further update its operations and 11 new employees. Sales are up about 30 percent this year over last year, Lucas said.
