Palmer Marine opens new plant
BLADENBORO, N.C. – Palmer Marine opened a new facility in Southwestern North Carolina, which will produce boats for its Shamrock, Defiance and Tiderunner lines, according to an article yesterday on the Bladen Journal’s Web site.
The plant will operate under the name Bladen Composites. The company is hiring and training new employees and is completing the first boat, a 27-foot Shamrock Mackinaw.
“We build boats from the ground up and we try to do as much as we can here,” Dan Waite, plant manager, told the newspaper. “We even build our own molds for the boats. We’re hoping that by this time next year, we’ll have 80 to 100 people employed here.”
Currently, there is one assembly line in place at the facility. There will be six manufacturing lines and about 150 employees will be hired when the plant is fully functioning and all employees are fully trained, according to the Journal. The boats manufactured will be19-foot to 32-foot ocean-going sport fishing boats.
“We’ll be building about 100 boats a year,” Waite told the newspaper. “That’s our first goal by this time next year.”
He said the company is setting up new vendors and trying to use as many local businesses as possible for suppliers.
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