Walk through a grocery store anywhere in the country and there is a good chance you will find a product with a connection to Ames.
Amcor’s Ames manufacturing facility produces millions of plastic bottles and preforms every day for some of the nation’s leading beverage brands. It is a large-scale manufacturing operation with a reach that extends well beyond the community.
Leading the Ames plant is Plant Director Jeff Thede, whose own career reflects the opportunities available within manufacturing. Thede has spent approximately 30 years with the company, beginning in 1996 when the facility was operated by Ball.
At just 19 years old, Thede started as a machine operator. He later moved into maintenance before deciding he wanted to pursue management. He was promoted to supervisor, and in 2004, accepted an opportunity to move his family to Chino, California, to work at another former Ball facility.
When Ball was acquired by Amcor in 2010, Thede had an opportunity to return to Iowa. He came back to Ames as a plant engineer, eventually becoming operations manager and then plant director. He has now served as plant director for approximately four years.
His focus today goes beyond keeping production moving. Thede is heavily involved with employees on the production floor and the training they receive, with an emphasis on developing people and helping them achieve their professional goals. That people-focused leadership supports an operation that runs on an impressive scale.
Amcor is one of the largest plastics companies in the United States, with facilities around the world and operations spanning plastics, specialty containers and flexible packaging.
The Ames facility is part of Amcor’s plastic beverage division, which includes 13 plants. The facility produces a wide range of containers for consumable liquids, including packaging for BodyArmor and Gold Peak Tea.
Those two products alone account for approximately 1.5 million bottles produced each day at the Ames facility. The operation runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The plant also produces preforms, essentially blank plastic tubes that are later transformed into finished bottles through a two-step blow-molding process. Ames can produce more than 9 million preforms per day while consuming approximately 350,000 pounds of plastic resin every day.
The facility’s customers include major companies such as Pepsi, Refresco, and Coca-Cola, along with several smaller customers.
For Ames, that makes Amcor an important example of how local manufacturing can have a national impact. Products manufactured by employees in Ames ultimately make their way into supply chains serving consumers across the country.
For Thede, the story is equally local. A career that began on the production floor as a 19-year-old machine operator has evolved into plant leadership and workforce development.
From Ames, Amcor is manufacturing at a national scale, while providing local career opportunities and demonstrating the power of advanced manufacturing to connect a community to markets far beyond its borders.
Learn more about AMCOR on their website: www.AMCOR.com