Community Leaders Visit CLOW To Learn
Community leaders toured CLOW this past week to learn more about the company and what it needs to be successful in Oskaloosa and Mahaska County. (file photo)
Keeping a business strong and viable takes lots of hard work from employees, and leadership to deliver the right tools to help make it happen.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – A group of community leaders took an extensive tour of CLOW Valve Company in Oskaloosa on Wednesday morning, in order to better understand what it takes to keep one of Oskaloosa and Mahaska County’s largest employers operational.
Mark Willett, General Manager of CLOW Valve said that it is important for county and city leaders to understand what they do, as well as what they [CLOW] need from them, and the hurdles the business faces here as a local manufacturer. “In the future, we can look to opportunities to partner with them to resolve those roadblocks or eliminate those roadblocks.”
Tom Flaherty of Mahaska Community Development Group [MCDG] helped to facilitate the meeting between CLOW and the group of community leaders.
Flaherty said that such meetings are important because there are a couple of constraints in the county, those being workforce and housing.
“Twenty-five percent of the Mahaska County employment base is manufacturing, more than forty percent of Marion County’s is based on manufacturing. When you blend the two together, thirty-five percent of the workforce in-between these two counties is employed in manufacturing. That’s one in three people working directly for a manufacturer. That kind of density is very unique,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty also said that of all of our manufacturers, about three-quarters of them export products. “Having that new money come into our community is very important.”
Housing is another priority to help business and manufacturing attract new people to the community, and plays a role in helping local manufacturing grow.
“We’ve hired several professionals over the last couple of years from the Des Moines metro that have elected to stay there,” said Willett. “Some cases it was family, in other cases it was simply because [of the] housing availability in Mahaska County area. If we are going to expand the skilled trades and just overall the people that we need to attract to the area, they need to have a place to live and go home. Without that, it’s going to be very difficult to draw them from another employer.”
“We absolutely need quality housing available to get that done,” added Willett.
Flaherty said that for MCDG, housing is one of the big reasons all of the groups like the Oskaloosa Chamber and Main Street are working towards finding and attracting quality housing, be it downtown living, new home construction, or market-rate apartments.
Willett said that there was some surprise “on the footprint which we service, not only in the United States but more importantly our export business that we do. The amount of sheer volume that comes through this plant.”
Attracting and developing that workforce is also taking place from within, like partnering with Indian Hills Community College, but also reaching out to local high schools to help educate interested students in potential career paths. Those could include a two-year degree, or less, and students walk away with good paying employment and very little to no college debt.
Indians Hills and CLOW have teamed up for a customized two-year degree to fit the needs at CLOW. “Currently we pay for full tuition for three individuals from the machine shop, and two individuals from the metal casting facility; we pay their full tuition. They will get a two-year degree, customized to our needs. The only requirements are that they need to make acceptable grades. They need to work here a minimum of 20 hours a week and then work here two years after they graduate.”
Flaherty said that by inviting community leaders to visit CLOW and other such manufacturing facilities, “They will be able to go out and speak much more accurately to what’s going on here and the opportunities that are here. We’re here to support the CLOW’s of the world any way we can.”
You can learn more about CLOW Valve by visiting their Facebook Page HERE – https://www.facebook.com/ClowValve/.
Those dignitaries attending the tour and learning session were: Mahaska County Supervisor Willie Van Weelden, Oskaloosa Schools Superintendent Paula Wright, Oskaloosa City Council Member Diane Ottosson, Oskaloosa Mayor Dave Krutzfeldt, Mahaska County Supervisor Candidate Paul DeGeest, and Mahaska County Supervisor Candidate Scott Van Veldhuizen.
