Genesis Products President and CEO Jon Wenger said the company plans to open a new plant in December to provide the company space to move its countertop production out of the lamination plant it currently shares.
The plan to expand countertop production to a new facility, first announced in the August 2021 RV News magazine issue, will be two years in the making befor
e the new facility, Plant 10 in Goshen, Indiana, opens, Wenger said.
“This started, probably in January of 2021,” he said. “It took time to get the land, the plans we needed, all the design work done. The steel is on a 39-week schedule, so we ordered last September and it will show up in June. This really is a two-year project.”
Genesis Products supplies cabinets, doors, panels and other products to the RV industry, in addition to solid-surface and thermoformed countertops.
Genesis broke ground on the 75,000-square-foot plant Wednesday. The building is expected to be completed in December and Wenger hopes to move into the facility before the end of 2022.
The company’s success in solid-surface countertop production since launching the product in 2020, drove the need for more space, he said.
“We’ve gotten good traction there,” Wenger said. “We have seen good demand. We have taken it slowly, but our customers are happy.”
Moving countertop production out of its current home, sharing space with lamination production, also will provide Genesis more space to increase lamination work, Wenger said.
Along with the new plant, Genesis Products bought four acres to complete its 26-acre campus in Goshen. Wenger said the extra space will be used to increase company parking for more than 1,000 employees.
“The last 12 months, we have added about 200 people,” Wenger said. “We will be adding more; we have about 75 open positions today. We want to be really focused on being a great place to work. To keep growing our team successfully, we need great leaders, great benefits and the ability to adapt to new work-life needs.”
The supplier is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Wenger said Genesis leaders view the company as a young startup but know the supplier has become established over time.
“We are recognizing that, but we’re also just getting warmed up,” Wegner said. “The MO in Elkhart County is to start up and move on and out, but that is not our approach. We are building a leadership team for the future, investing in capacity. We are here and we are just getting warmed up.”
