By Keith Roysdon—
DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind. – A leading Italy-based manufacturer of industrial filters has chosen Delaware County to expand its footprint, grow its business and locate its North American headquarters.
Filtrec, which has had a presence in Delaware County through inventory in a storage building in the town of Daleville, recently purchased an industrial building just south of Muncie and will be moving into it during June.
Filtrec will move its inventory of thousands of filters into the former Taurus Tool building on County Road 400-South near Indiana 67, Filtrec United States Director of Operations Mauro Milani said. Filtrec completed purchase of the building on June 1.
After the move of 6,000 parts in inventory, Milani said, machinery to assemble Filtrec’s wide array of filter products will be installed and the company’s North American headquarters offices will follow.
“As soon as we complete relocation, we’ll stock 2,000 more filters,” Milani said.
The company’s employee base will grow, he added, from nine employees currently in the United States to 12-30 by the end of this year.
The move caps several years in which the Delaware County commissioners and Brad Bookout, the county’s Director of Delaware County Economic & Municipal Affairs, worked with Milani and Filtrec to bring the company to Delaware County. Bill Walters, executive director of East Central Indiana Regional Planning District, was credited by Bookout for his role in the project.
The company’s more than 1,000 types of industrial and hydraulic filters are widely used in industry, including manufacturing, excavating, cranes, mining and agriculture.
County officials met and hosted Filtrec principals in 2017, a two-day visit locally that resulted in the company’s filters being stored in leased space in Daleville for easy distribution to Filtrec customers throughout the Midwest. The COVID pandemic delayed local expansion for the Italian company, but Filtrec and the county pushed forward, leading to the purchase of the former Taurus Tool property.
“We’ll be up and running in the new building at the end of this month,” Milani said.
Filtrec will invest more than $1 million in establishing its new headquarters and assembly plant, Bookout said.
Milani said the Delaware County location was important for Filtrec.
“To be in the heart of the Midwest, not so far from our customer base,” was a big reason, he said.
“Delaware County has showed us so much interest and support” from the start, Milani said. “Delaware County did so great for us. The county and the county’s economic development team are always first in line helping us.”
Commissioner President Sherry Riggin said, “Ensuring that long established local manufacturing buildings are acquired by new, responsible industrial users is vital to preventing these buildings from meeting the same fate as Borg-Warner or the former Chevy plant. The pro-active efforts of getting new users into these buildings is an important part of work performed by our economic development team.”
“Having spearheaded the efforts to attract a great company like Filtrec to Delaware County and now seeing their success makes my job as a commissioner worth it every day. I couldn’t be more proud of operations manager Mauro Milani and the entire Modina family (which owns Filtrec) for bringing such an outstanding operation to Delaware County.” said County Commissioner James King.
Commissioner Shannon Henry said, “Having had the opportunity to work with Filtrec’s management team throughout this whole process, I’ve come to realize that the Filtrec brand is one of the most stable, high-tech and diversified filter brands in the world. Having operations on three continents, Filtrec has a global presence that should make everyone happy that they chose Delaware County as their North American Headquarters.”
About Delaware County Economic Development
Dynamic and forward-thinking economic development is the specialty of Delaware County, Indiana. In 2015 the Delaware County Commissioners privatized the County’s economic development activities. Since that time, the County has developed its own business retention and expansion programs that are in constant contact with the multitude of industry within the County. In addition, efforts to identify and attract various suitable industry throughout the world are undertaken on an annual basis. For more information, contact Brad Bookout at bbookout@augustaconsultingllc.com.
