THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
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Today continues off our Faces of Quaker Oats series as we share the stories and memories employees and community members have of a Danville plant that closed in June. Email Jennifer Bailey at jbailey@news-gazette.com to contribute.
TILTON — When Jeffery Williams learned Quaker Oats would be closing in June and he’d be out of a job, he took it in stride.
Williams considers himself a calm person. He goes with the flow.
He considered semi-retirement, and his plan was to at least not do anything this summer.
But he started casually looking for jobs, sending out resumes and applications. He said he wasn’t taking it too seriously.
“I think like the second week I got a job offer,” Williams said.
He applied for a general public works laborer position with the city of Danville.
During the interview, a different city job was suggested for him.
He was hired as an engineering technician in July.
“Right now, I’m doing a lot of inspections,” he said about sewer and sanitation inspections.
He said the job “is a lot different,” but also involves some of what he did at Quaker Oats.
“Engineering is very precise. I’m not kind of used to that,” Williams said.
He has a degree in political science, but Quaker Oats’ skills that carry over into his new job were a lot of data collection and quality control.
In October, he will be put on the $3.1 million Ellsworth Park lift station replacement and sewer improvements project.
Williams wasn’t a Quaker Oats employee looking to relocate. He has a daughter, which played a part in his job search and wanting to stay local.
Williams, who isn’t related to Danville Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. but is the son of Danville City Council Alderman Robert Williams, said his dad didn’t know about his new job until after he was hired.
Williams started as a temporary worker at Quaker Oats in 1996. He did that off and on for three years and became permanent in 1998.
For most of those almost 29 years he was a process forming operator.
He said it’s hard to explain the position.
“It’s creating the (granola) bars… I (was) on the line but I (was) monitoring the equipment,” he said about forming the bars.
He said when the employees were off work due to the Quaker Oats product recall, he initially thought they’d be going back to work as usual.
“There was always that glimmer of hope that things would turn out,” he said.
But as big as the issues were, he kind of knew something was wrong and going on and it had been for a while.
“It wasn’t a shock,” he said.
He said a lot of his fellow former local co-workers are getting their CDL (commercial driver’s license) and pursuing other careers.
“I think a lot had to do with your severance package,” Williams said.
Looking now at everything with the long-time Vermilion County employer, “it’s sad,” he said, especially every time he drives by and sees the plant.
“It’s almost like leaving a family,” Williams added. “There’s been so many events, and things that’ve gone on there. We’ve seen births, deaths, marriages and divorces, and people going into kindergarten and graduating college. It’s hard, and all of a sudden it’s gone.”
He said the former employees are keeping in touch and had a
union party a couple weeks ago.
Hopefully they will continue those reunions, he said.
For his foreseeable future, Williams said he sees himself continuing to work for the city.
“I like it,” he said. “There’s a lot that goes on here.”
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