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FMA officially breaks ground on new building

The Fabricators & Manufacturers Association held an official groundbreaking ceremony at the site of its new building in Elgin, Ill., on Aug. 23. Dignitaries from FMA’s board of directors and the city of Elgin came together for a ceremonial dig and to tour the grounds. Lyle Menke, Peddinghaus Corp.; Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain; Al Zelt, ASKO Inc.; FMA President and CEO Ed Youdell; Edwin Stanley, GH Metal Solutions; Theresa Beach-Shelow, Superior Joining Technologies; Bill Isaac, MC Machinery Systems Inc.; Gregg Simpson, Ohio Laser; William Jeffery, IRMCO; David Brown, Affiliations Unlimited; and Phil Meinczinger, Magnetic Analysis Corp., move some dirt as part of the groundbreaking event.

Even though the building’s walls are standing erect and the roof is in place, members and staff of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) and guests proved it’s never too late to have an official groundbreaking. Everyone had a chance to put a shiny shovel into the ground at the site that will be the association’s new headquarters in Elgin, Ill.

“How we got to this point is that I was asked by Carlos Borjas, who was leading the [FMA] executive committee at the time, that if I were to start FMA all over again, where would you put it. That led us to a journey of about 18 months’ worth of research and fact-finding to determine what would be the ideal location for us,” FMA President and CEO Ed Youdell said. “With all of our constituents in the area, the major industry suppliers on the I-90 corridor, and looking at our own database where the largest concentration of our members and people who work in the industry are, it made the most sense to come to this location.”

The Elgin office will be located 40 miles from downtown Chicago and 25 miles from O’Hare International Airport. It is also 45 miles southeast of its current headquarters in Rockford, Ill. FMA officials believe that the location in the Chicago suburbs will be more convenient for nearby fabricators and industry suppliers to visit and take advantage of the association’s educational initiatives and networking opportunities. The new building is also near the new FMA Metal Fabrication Lab at Harper College in Palatine, Ill.

“Rockford has been a great home for FMA, but we’ve been in our current location since 1992,” Youdell said. “From humble beginnings to where we are today, it’s really the staff that is here that has done that and built this business and association, along with all of our members who have supported us.”

The association plans to occupy the building in December.