Schattdecor announces new plant in St. Louis, MO
At the 2008 IWF show in Atlanta, the Schattdecor USA team led by Tom Drazen presented about 250 different decors in 16 colour and eleven market categories according to the motto "family tree'. At the event, Reiner Schulz, CEO of Schattdecor, and Tom Drazen also announced plans to build a decor paper printing works in St. Louis, MO.
Over 50 customers from the USA, Canada, South America and India came together in a hotel suite in the Omni Hotel, Atlanta, to learn from designer Mark Smith and the US sales team about new colours, trends and decors especially developed for the North American market. With the help of an array of colours complemented by appropriate woodgrain and fantasy decors, the visitors were able to choose from a wealth of differing possibilities, whereby the three new colour trends titled Tan, Yellow-Green and Grey met with particular approval. The most popular decors proved to be Coburg Oak, Vichy Apple and Laricio Pine.
At the end of the first day of the IWF, over 100 guests attended Schattdecor's cocktail reception, where it was proudly announced by Reiner Schulz and Tom Drazen that Schattdecor had already laid the foundation stone for a decor printing works in St. Louis, MO, and would be starting on site development for the new building in October. Large-format CAD visualisations of the new production facility left the customers and guests highly impressed by its modern and generously-dimensioned architecture of the building.
Reiner Schulz emphasized that following many years of preparatory work and getting to know the "mindset and culture of this great country and its people", the time had come to take action by setting up local production facilities to serve North American customers in the best possible way. He said he was banking in return on customer support in the form of orders for the new decor paper printing plant. Choosing St. Louis as the location of the new works was an obvious decision for Schattdecor. As the CEO explained, "If you have a good team of people who have been living in a certain area for many years, it makes no sense to tear them out of their accustomed surroundings. Thus it was a foregone conclusion for Schattdecor that we would build where our US employees live. Apart from which, St. Louis is centrally situated within North America and in this respect too is a very good location for a plant. And with Tom Drazen as head of the new company, a further good decision was taken some years ago".
Tom Drazen went on to describe how for him, following 13 years of work for Schattdecor, the construction of the plant in St. Louis was a dream come true. He could still remember the first years in vivid detail and was naturally a little proud that with the help of his team and the support of Ulrich Ringelberg, Schattdecor's Overseas Sales Director, he had been able to continuously increase North American sales every year. "In the name of my staff, I would like to thank Walter Schatt as owner of Schattdecor and the company's Management Board for the trust they are placing in us in the form of the new plant. We will do our best to ensure that you, Mr. Schulz, will be able to order a second printing machine for it very soon."
Tom Drazen thanked the many customers for their loyalty over the years, and went on to assure them that decor paper produced by Schattdecor in the USA would be of the same high standard as that from Europe or China. "'Made by Schattdecor' quality from the USA – this is our goal", he said.
He also thanked his staffers, many of whom had accompanied him on the long path from "the basement of my home" to the present day, concluding, "The new building will be commensurate with Schattdecor's position on the North American market and the fine quality of its products."
The customers, guests and employees responded to both speeches with long applause and followed the descriptions provided by Reiner Schulz, Tom Drazen and Ulrich Ringelberg of the future printing equipment with great interest. Production operations are scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2010.
Following inauguration of Schattdecor's new Russian production facility in Chekhov in October 2008, the start of its new production plant in Turkey in 2009, and the opening of the new US plant in 2010, Schattdecor will have eleven facilities for the production of printed decor paper and finish foil in comparison to eight today. Including the works operated by its three subsidiaries Arcolor, Rotodecor and Kingdecor, Schattdecor will thus have 14 production locations all over the world by early 2010.
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In the case of any questions, please contact:
Schattdecor AG
Corporate Communications
Bernd Reuss, M.A.
Phone: ++49/(0)8031/ 275-2779
Fax: ++49/(0)8031/ 275-2200
Email: b.reuss@schattdecor.de
