Organization

RTD Manufacturing gets major military contract; deal expected to help retain jobs

By Chris Gautz
October 26, 2009

A local manufacturer has received a major military contract that is expected to create and retain jobs, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer’s office.

Officials were to announce details of the contract at a news conference this morning at RTD Manufacturing Inc., 1150 S. Elm St.

“It opens the door for military projects to come to RTD,” Schauer spokesman Zack Pohl said.

Schauer, RTD President Bryant Ramsey and Scott Fleming, president and CEO of The Enterprise Group, the county’s economic development agency, will discuss the contract at the event.

Pohl said because of the contract, now when the U.S. military needs a new piece of equipment, it can turn to manufacturers like RTD to produce it.

RTD is a full-service job shop, from machining high-tolerance details to replacement parts and fixtures.

Pohl said Schauer’s Economic Development Director Lisa Dedden Cooper has been working on this project for two years.

In recent years the company has worked to diversify and look for business in new markets.

In 2007, the firm purchased a rare, hand-held 3-D scanner, which cost several hundred thousand dollars and allows the company to scan fabricated parts or complicated machines for themselves or other customers.

One year ago, the company announced it was partnering with Dexter-based inventor Ken Henes to produce a classified military device that could be used to fight forest fires and be used with various military and homeland security applications.

It was expected to create 1,200 jobs in four years, but that deal never materialized.

At that time the company employed 27, about half of what it did two years ago.

The company now has about a dozen employees, Pohl said.

“They are looking for ways to diversify their business and this opens a new avenue for them to pursue to be able to compete in the 21st-century economy,” Pohl said.

RTD was founded by Ramsey’s father, the late William “Bill” Ramsey, in his garage in 1985. Since his death in 2005, Ramsey’s sons have run the company.