Snyder's-Lance, CPCC Partner to Retrain 158 Workers for Company's Charlotte Plant

Ken Elkins

Senior Staff Writer- Charlotte Business Journal

Snyder's-Lance Inc. (NASDAQ:LNCE) is working with Central Piedmont Community College to retrain about 160 workers as it adds a big dose of advance manufacturing to its South Boulevard plant in Charlotte.

The Charlotte-based snack company is spending $73.3 million over three years to automate production lines at its chip and snack cracker plant, one of the company's largest.

To support its training partnership with Snyder's-Lance, CPCC is receiving $201,124 from the N.C. Department of Commerce from a fund designed to close the skills gap between the jobs available in the current market and the capabilities of N.C. workers.

With the additional training, company employees will be equipped to install and maintain machines at the local plant, says Carl Lee Jr., Snyder's-Lance chief executive.

"The way we've run our plant traditionally and the way we're running it today are very different," he says.

The program was unveiled during a session with the media this morning at the community college.

The automated plant will require workers trained in mechanical drive systems, electrical control circuits and a half dozen other disciplines, says Tony Zeiss, CPCC president.

"It's all very customized," he says. "It's all very technological."

Bob Morgan, Charlotte Chamber president, says it makes sense for Snyder's-Lance to team up with CPCC for the training.

"There is no partner in economic development more attuned to the needs of the employers than CPCC," he says.

Dalton Sansom, an electrician at the South Boulevard plant with seven years experience at Snyder's-Lance, says it's good that the company chose to retrain employees instead of replacing them.

"I'm glad that we're getting the opportunity to train instead of the company saying that we're all old-school and hiring someone else," he says.

Lee says the program may allow hiring a "few new associates" over time.

In 2008, Snyder's-Lance began a huge project to add lean manufacturing and sustainability ideas to the 1.2 million-square-foot plant, which opened in the 1960s.

Today, the plant has 900 employees and makes crackers for the company's sandwich snacks, Cape Cod chips and other products.

Lance Inc. and Snyder's of Hanover Inc., a Pennsylvania pretzel-snack maker, merged in December 2010. The merged company is the No. 2 national maker of salty snacks, behind PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay unit.

For the Snyder's-Lance project, CPCC is using its integrated systems technology lab in the community college's Advanced Technology Center. The idea is to train maintenance mechanics, electricians, electrical control technicians and production-line mechanics to keep the lines running, says Michelle Miller, executive director of the college's corporate learning center.

Morgan says Snyder's-Lance has proved that Charlotte can keep its manufacturing base strong.

"Manufacturing is alive and well in Charlotte," he says.

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