Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 20, 2007, Pages 1 &8

Ringgold county's industrial base received a blow this week with the announcement of the closing of the Mount Ayr Products plant.

The plant, which made wiring harnesses for various types of vehicles, has been part of Mount Ayr industrial park since building their plant in 1985.

No definite time for the closing has been made yet, but employees were notified last week that the plant would only be open for four to six weeks.

The Mount Ayr plant was making battery wiring harnesses for medium and heavy duty GM trucks through the Delphi Corporation when General Motors started purchasing the harnesses from China in June 2006.

That loss of business last June meant that 20 employees with the firm here lost their jobs.

"We have been finding some new customers but not enough to make up for the $3.6 to $4 million that the contract with General Motors brought," Misty STARK, plant manager said.

Business handled in the Mount Ayr plant will be moved to Murray, the only Dekko Group plant left in Iowa. An administrative office will also continue in the state.

Other of the business will go to the company's plants in Juarez, Mexico, STARK said.

When the plant closes here, 26 more people will lose their jobs, she said.

The plant closing will not affect the work of the Dekko Foundation in Ringgold county. That will continue.

According to Sharon SMITH from the Foundation headquarters in Indiana, the foundation's mission is to support communities where plants were located during the life of the late Chet DEKKO.

"Our mission to work in these communities will continue in the future," SMITH said.

She noted that some of the most creative community projects they have worked with are from Ringgold county.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2012