A year later, DeWitt still reeling

DeWITT, Neb. — Drive by the Irwin Industrial Tool plant these days and the only things you'll hear are the hum of grasshoppers, a flagpole rattling in the breeze, the distant rumble of a tractor in an unseen field.

The massive four-square-block factory that once propelled this little town is shuttered and silent.

Until last October, DeWitt throbbed with factory noise as hundreds of workers arrived each day to make the iconic Vise-Grip locking pliers and other tools.

Now townspeople can only remark how quiet their town has become.

“From three or four blocks away, you could hear the big machines, you got used to the big clunks and the vibrations,” recalled Larry Wattjes, a Village Board member and retired factory worker.

The plant was shut down to move the manufacturing of Vise-Grip pliers to China. About 300 people lost their jobs at a factory that once employed 600.

For nearly a year, townspeople have been on an emotional roller coaster as the plant's owner, Newell Rubbermaid, and state officials have searched in vain for another manufacturer to take over the plant.

Their hopes rose as each new prospect toured the plant, only to dwindle once more as each potential deal evaporated.

The uncertainty may end this week when Newell Rubbermaid holds a two-day auction today and Wednesday, to sell off the building and its contents.

But the hardest times and toughest choices may still lie ahead for DeWitt and surrounding towns.

The region, which has been losing population and businesses for decades, has seen a spike in unemployment since the plant closing, and former workers are struggling to find new jobs or carve out new careers.

In the 11 months since the factory shut down, laid-off workers have gone their separate ways, with the equivalent of about 13 weeks' pay to ease the transition to new lives.

About 75 former workers have enrolled at Southeast Community College to learn a new trade under a federal program for workers whose jobs were moved overseas.

Others found work at other factories or area hospitals or schools. Some took retirement, and others are still looking.

Janis Turner of Beatrice and Anita Oltmans of DeWitt are among those back in school after decades in the work force.

Turner, a single mother who raised her four children on her Vise-Grip paychecks, is studying to become a licensed practical nurse.

Oltmans, who worked 15 years at the plant, is studying agribusiness and hopes to find a job in a veterinary clinic after she graduates in December 2010.

Both felt like fish out of water.

“I had hardly used a computer,” Oltmans said. “I took an English comp class, and we had to send assignments in as e-mail. I didn't know how to do any of that.”

In the factory, she knew what she was doing.

“You got to know the equipment, you knew how to clean it, how to adjust it. You felt you knew something,'' Oltmans said. “When you leave, what do you do with that?”

Turner has organized a support group with other former co-workers who decided to go back to school.

“We were so overwhelmed,” she said.

But she's made the dean's list every quarter, in classes like microbiology. She's taking prerequisites that would allow her to go on to become a registered nurse.

“The younger kids (in her classes) take the test, and they get an 83 or 85 percent and they're happy,” Turner said. “I would not be happy with that. I work really hard, and I want an A.”

Other former plant workers hold out hope that the plant will reopen or that they can find another factory job in the region.

Randy Badman was tooling manager at the Vise-Grip plant when he was laid off in 2005. He's been laid off from two other factory jobs since then and is now looking for work.

“My background is in manufacturing, and there's not many people hiring,” he said.

Townspeople noted that many of the Vise-Grip workers never lived in DeWitt — they were from Beatrice, Wilber or other neighboring towns and drove to town for the job.

Many say that if the factory doesn't reopen, DeWitt will become a bedroom community, with most residents commuting elsewhere for work.

Since the 1980s, the town has lost its lumber yard, a drugstore and soda shop, its grocery store, a farm implement dealership and now the factory that Irwin Industrial Tools, a division of Newell Rubbermaid, bought in 2002.

Larry Wattjes and his wife, Lois, don't intend to move away from DeWitt.

“What is your choice?” Lois said. “A lot of people own their own homes — who would buy your house?''

Phil Michel, a consultant for the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, said he spoke to at least 50 companies and made hundreds of phone calls in the past year, looking for someone to take over the plant.

Last November, owners of a startup tool company, Nailjack, got as far as signing a memorandum of understanding with Newell Rubbermaid, he said. The deal fell through in April because frozen credit markets prevented Nailjack from getting financing.

Michel said the plant is a bigger factory than most small companies need, while larger companies, with business down because of the recession, told him they were not in a position to take it on.

The worst-case scenario at this week's auction: the equipment gets sold off and dispersed, and the building stands empty.

Although some former workers say they plan to attend the auction out of curiosity, Badman, who is chairman of the DeWitt Village Board, has mixed emotions.

“I'm not so sure I want to stand around and watch them sell off everything we worked so hard to build,” he said.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com

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