THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
ABOVE: Former Quaker Oats employees Trevor Montgomery, left, and Joe Holden, both of Danville, stand in front of the door of their new employer, Cerro-Gordo based Clarkson Specialty Lecithins, on North Market Street in Champaign.
DANVILLE — For former Quaker Oats employees Trevor Montgomery and Joe Holden, both of Danville, the longtime plant’s closure was both “sad” and “heartbreaking.”
Both have now found work at Clarkson Specialty Lecithins, a subsidiary of Clarkson Grain Company of Cerro Gordo, whose principal plant is on North Market Street in Champaign.
Clarkson provides natural lecithins, a group of fatty substances, for the food, pet-food, personal-care and pharmaceutical industries.
Montgomery said he’s heard the plan is for the former plant to be torn down, and it will be sad to see “another empty space in Danville” if that happens, he said.
But he also added about the community, “we’re in better hands than we were 10 years ago.”
Montgomery said leaders such as Vermilion Advantage CEO/President Mike Marron and Danville Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. have the best intentions for the city and Vermilion County, and he is hopeful they will find something to fill that space that will bring in more jobs and income.
“I’d like to see something go in there to fill the void,” Montgomery said.
Marron, Williams and others have been in Washington, D.C., on Vermilion Advantage’s first sponsored annual lobbying trip.
On Wednesday and Thursday, local leaders met with various members of Congress, including two whose districts include parts of the area: Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, and Mary Miller, R-Hindsboro.
Vermilion Advantage is advocating for a $1 million appropriation from Sen. Tammy Duckworth toward an estimated $2.5 million to $3 million flood/stormwater remediation along East Voorhees Street near the former Quaker Oats property for industrial redevelopment; funding for general/utility infrastructure for industrial site prep and workforce training; “a streamlined regulatory process for immigrants so we are more readily able to attract immigrants into our community”; and funding for blight remediation/land-banking operations to tear down old, dilapidated properties and replace them new, affordable housing, Marron said.
He reported Thursday that he, Williams and Vermilion Advantage staff member Jodie Ingram and board members Tonya Hill and Ross Darby met with Duckworth and her counterpart, Sen. Dick Durbin; as well as Kelly and fellow Reps. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, Darin LaHood, R-Peoria.
“We talked about the Quaker Oats closure and how it impacted Vermilion County,” Marron said. “We discussed our redevelopment plan and asked them to support infrastructure and workforce training funding.”
The transition after the Quaker Oats plant closure hasn’t been easy for many former employees, Montgomery said.
“The folks that worked at the site are some of the best employees you will find. They are good, hard-working people,” he said.
That includes Montgomery and Holden, according to officials at their new company.
“We are very fortunate to have picked up at least two former Quaker employees, one of whom is now the plant manager,” said Clarkson board member Mike Mazzocco of Champaign.
That would be Montgomery, who spent 11 years with Quaker Oats. Holden, who spent 18 years at Quaker, is a plant operator at Clarkson.
“It’s my first factory job I ever worked,” Holden, 54, who was born and raised in Danville, said about his Quaker Oats job. “I was absolutely thrilled when I got the job.”
When he was hired, he said there were more than 800 applicants for 20 spots. He said he got his job because someone ahead of him failed their drug test.
He started out as a systems-flow operator and moved to the Chewy department, working in wrapper and bar reclaim. He also was in the breakfast department at one point and ended up in shipping. He was a palletizer operator and loaded product onto trailers.
Holden said prior to PepsiCo announcing the plant’s closure, following a product recall months earlier, he didn’t know what was going to happen, but knew closure was a possibility.
“But even with me realizing it’s a possibility, it was still very, very sad and heartbreaking news,” he said.
He said he was concerned about what he and the other employees were going to do next.
“It’s a major life event, after 18 years working at the same place. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he said.
Holden said everything was on the table after he lost his job. He considered going back to school and even moving. He was going to take a job at Subaru in Lafayette, Ind., having learned about a job opening from a friend who was getting a job there and being offered one himself. But then he heard about the Clarkson job. He put in his resume and “was thrilled” when he was hired.
He wanted to stay close to home.
“My heart is in Danville,” Holden said of the city where he also ministers. “I kept praying and keeping my eyes and ears open. Then this door opened up. I was very thankful.”
He started at Clarkson on June 27, dealing with functions and responsible for the operations process on the floor.
“It’s been going great. I love it. I’m very thankful,” he said.
Holden said there’s been a learning curve, as with any job at a new place. It’s essentially starting over, he said, adding that every company is different and employees learn the way of doing things.
“I’m still learning,” Holden said.
He has fantasies about retiring early, as many do, but thinks he has about 10 more years in the workforce.
He still keeps in contact with many of his former Quaker Oats coworkers. They will be lifelong friends, he said.
He would love to see “something great” come to the site of the former plant in Danville. He said things can really turn around in Danville, and a future factory could be another success story.
“Danville has seen some hard times, and I’d love to see nothing more than prosperity and jobs and success come to Danville,” Holden added. “I’m glad I got to stay in this area. I really don’t want to move.”
Montgomery started at Quaker Oats when he was 20 years old as an hourly production worker. He worked his way up through ranks through PepsiCo as supervisor and capability leader. When the Danville plant closed in June, he moved to PepsiCo’s beverages side as an associate manager for a corporate team for the north division.
He worked from home, but traveled a lot.
He wasn’t really looking for a new role, being pretty content where he was, but then Clarkson called him to provide a reference for Holden.
Montgomery said he wasn’t very interested at first, but as the conversation progressed, he realized he was used to managing people, and got to thinking about the toll all the travel with his new role would take on him and his family, and how the job at Clarkson would keep him closer to home.
Montgomery started in late July.
“Clarkson is a really solid company,” he said. “The founder lives in Cerro Gordo. It’s a tight-knit family.”
Montgomery said the family he formed with coworkers at Quaker Oats continues to be on his mind. He said he didn’t foresee the plant closing. He had expected dramatic changes, but not a complete shutdown.
He said he’s not an emotional guy, but he became emotional when the plant closed, thinking about how it helped develop who he is in his leadership role, and the 515 families who were disrupted.
He said his initial feelings were “Oh my gosh, all the families” and “What can I do; how can I help?”
One way is by providing references for the ex-employees applying for other jobs, he said, as with Holden.
Montgomery said many of the former employees are a little rusty in finding new work, as they haven’t gone through the job-interview process for up to 25 years. He asked prospective new employers to give them a chance.
“That place was kind of home to me. It provided a very good lifestyle for many people for many years,” he said of Quaker Oats, adding that he’s not sure he’d have had the opportunities for his leadership experiences without the company.
He said he was a young stupid kid when he started at Quaker Oats and was thankful to progress in his career and life there. PepsiCo also paid for additional education for him.
He said he still has really good relationships with everyone he worked with there, and they still get together, and he still talks to several of them on a daily basis.
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