Great Lakes Belting doubles its size with new building in Paw Paw

Great Lakes Belting’s Vice President Kip Kerby likes to say his company keeps the whole world spinning.

It’s something taken for granted, but most anything that has been manufactured has ridden on a conveyor belt. Great Lakes Belting engineers, installs and services those belts.

In December the company moved into its new building, a 23,000-square-foot plant double the size of its previous quarters. The company is now able to bring all its operations, including its warehouse, under one roof at 142 Ampey Road in Paw Paw.

Kerby also expects the move to mean the company can expand into new business areas. “This will open up doors for us to take work we couldn’t do before,” Kerby says.

The move, one the company had been wanting to make for about 10 years, came about when a tenant came forward asking to lease the building the company previously occupied.

The project was clinched after the Village of Paw Paw approved an Industrial Facilities Tax abatement that allows the company to pay 50 percent of its regular tax bill for 12 years. In return, Great Lakes Belting agrees to create at least two jobs. It hopes to create at least four.

The company creates belts used in food processing, industrial automation, material handling, paper converting, specialty industrial applications. The belts it makes for food processing, for example, help companies deal with foods are may be oily, greasy or wet. Or foods that are frozen or steaming hot or have particles that grind at a belt cover and wear it down.

Great Lakes Belting bills itself as the type of company that can address the needs of those who have been told the type of conveyor belt they want can’t be built.

The company is planning a May 13 celebration of the one year anniversary of the groundbreaking on its new building.

Writer: Kathy Jennings
Source: Kip Kerby, Great Lakes Belting