By Angeles Ponpa
EAST PEORIA, Ill. (25 News) -For more than 80 years, Morton Industries has called Central Illinois home. Now, the company is expanding its footprint by opening a factory in East Peoria.
Morton Industries is expecting to open the facility in August at 2500 N. Main Street. Company leaders said the new location will be dedicated to tubular fabrication for its new customer base – artificial intelligence and data centers.
The business currently focuses on carbon steel, some aluminum and some stainless steel. Morton Industries’ core business centers around the internal workings of generators and motors.
“Some of our items, really, throughout all plants, are going to be either carrier tubes or structure tubes. They make up those two types,” said Troy Deiss, Vice President of Operations for Morton Industries.
“The carrier tubes will be carrying fluids- like hydraulic lines or hydraulic fluids. Cooling fluids. And so, the market that we’re getting into right now is really based around the cooling of the chip inside the data center.”
With the addition of the new facility, Deiss said that the company is looking to hire between 50-100 new workers. Between both facilities, they are hoping to hire about 200 workers by year’s end. The new location is directly behind a bus route, which Deiss said the company hopes will open the opportunity for a new labor force.
That labor force would be specialized in high-skill labor, but Morton Industries is willing to train those interested in being taught the new type of machinery. Deiss said there will also be opportunities for growth within the company and to teach levels of engineering “never seen before.”
“Machine operators [are] really the focus around here, but it’s not your normal machine. It’s a very highly sophisticated type of welding that some people have welding experience that are running them right now and some people that we’re training from the ground up,” said Deiss.
He said surrounding high schools and universities, including Illinois Central College and Bradley University, give a good foundational background for people wanting to work with steel.
Deiss said that Morton Industries wanted to remain in Central Illinois to make it in close proximity for people currently working for the company, and to make moving machinery with ease from one place to another. East Peoria had a place for sale that met those needs.
Peoria area leaders said the growth is exciting and shows the Central Illinois market can adapt to new demand.
“It’s a completely new industry that Morton Industries is getting into,” said Chris Setti, CEO of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council.
“With a new set of customers and a new set of capabilities that they hadn’t really explored before makes them a more resilient company, a broader company, and one that’ll have a deeper impact here in the region.”
Other local industries which have entered the data center market include Caterpillar and Komatsu. Both build off-highway construction and mining equipment and make parts for data centers.
“The data center industry is an interesting industry,” said Setti.
“And while it has obviously some local implications about the siting of data centers, the reality is these data centers are being built all across the globe, and we have a number of companies here that are taking advantage of that growth,” said Setti.
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