Mark Early – Plant Manager from Baldor gave the club a presentation about his facility. Baldor is an amazingly successful plant. In fact, it has won several awards and is considered a “world class” roller bearing plant. They manufacture the Dodge product line. This is a valuable, old brand name but it has nothing to do with Dodge/Chrysler. This Dodge involves mounted roller bearings. In fact, Dodge controls about 70% of the North American market.

In 2009 the plant had 93 employees and now it is up to 131. This speaks to the company’s strength in a difficult market. Employees come from 11 counties (as far away as Tennessee) but 73% are from McDowell.

Baldor has two other plants in the region and employees a total of 800 employees in the Marion, Kings Mountain, and Weaverville plants.