Business Is Red Hot
At Vermont Castings
By M. D. Drysdale

Keith Currier guides a vat of 2500ø molten steel into the pouring furnace at Vt. Castings' Randolph Foundry. Foundry employees are working 10-hour days to abate the pre-winter rush. (Herald / Tim Calabro)

History repeats itself. The Vermont Castings stove company was born in Randolph as a stepchild of the 1973 worldwide energy crisis—when gas prices shot up from 15 cents a gallon to (horrors) 35 cents.

Now, the explosion in oil prices following Hurricane Katrina last August has resulted in a huge new demand for woodburning stoves made in Randolph and Bethel.

Officials at Vermont Castings, a division of CFM Corp., said this week that the market for wood stoves became "red hot" immediately after Katrina and resulted in a 50% increase in sales for Vt. Castings wood stoves which continue to be the best selling and most efficient cast iron wood stoves in the world.

As a result, the Randolph foundry and the Bethel manufacturing plant are looking to add anywhere from 20 to 40 employees. The company currently employs 240.

Plant Manager Dale Trombley explained that last year's renewed interest in wood stoves was accompanied by a 25% decrease in orders for gas stoves, which the company also manufactures. Now, however, Trombley said, gas sales are about up to normal, while demand for wood stoves has remained high, as Vermont Castings captured market share.

The company is thriving.

"We're here, we're lively, we want to grow," Trombley said.

That was reflected in work schedules this year, as the plants were closed just for one week for maintenance—compared to a five-week layoff last year.

Finding another 20-40 workers is not an easy task, noted Human Resources Manager Tanya LaFrance. The company already draws from a 30-40 mile radius, she said. One problem is that the Hartford-Lebanon labor market is so active that it's hard to draw people from there.

Advertising, featuring a benefits package and a $1000 sign-on bonus over six months, began this week, she noted. Employees are needed in both the first and second shifts at both locations, according to LaFrance.

More Work for Foundry

The other good news is that the Randolph foundry—which can produce about twice as much cast iron as is needed for the stoves—has found a lot of new business in the last year.

That's according to Mike Aube, who was brought on a year ago as business development manager and sourcing manager, partly to scare up new business for the foundry. That new business has come from other stove-makers (who also are busy) and also from Lodge Manufacturing, a 100-year-old Tennessee-based maker of cast iron cookware. Lodge, ("a great American institution," Aube says) places orders of 10,000 cast iron skillets at a whack.

"We have more work than we can produce," he said.

The new business at the foundry has made up for the only big disappointment in the last couple of years—the loss of the barbecue grill business. The cast iron parts of those high-end barbecue units had been made in Randolph and shipped for assembly to CFM plant in Canada, but the entire manufacturing line was moved to China.

It's the only instance of CFM business moving to China, Aube said, and even now some of the units continue to be made here.

The outsourcing of the barbecue units has apparently caused some confusion, as there is a local misunderstanding that Vermont Castings stoves are now made in China also, Trombley said. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the hot ovens in the Randolph foundry can attest.

Technology Edge

Indeed, Vermont Castings has flourished the last couple of years, as its attractive and high-technology stoves have continued to be the industry standard, selling from $1000 to $2500 each.

The research and development department of a dozen people in Randolph is part of the reason for that success. The company developed its own new technology, which it calls Everburn, to ensure high efficiency and low emissions.

Everburn has replaced the catalytic converters technology (also pioneered by Vermont Castings) so that the Vermont-made stoves are the cleanest-burning in the world, according to EPA tests, Aube said. Unlike the converters, which have to be replaced, the Everburn technology is guaranteed for the life of the stove.

The high technology has been a selling point abroad. Vermont Castings has a European distributor based in the United Kingdom and most recently has begun selling "thousands of stoves" in Japan.

Foreign customers also like the range of enamel colors that the stoves can be produced in—the largest range in the industry. Four new "designer colors" were created just this year—subtle shades going by the name of sage green, brick blue, country gray and granite gray.

The Japanese are extremely detail-oriented customers, noted LaFrance, "and they love coming here."

The success in both technology and sales have turned the Vermont Castings division into a "rising star" in the corporate world of CFM, Aube said. CFM, based in Mississauga, Ontario was bought out of threatened bankruptcy by a venture capital firm about a year ago, and the new owners have really taken note of the success here, he said.