The company offers a variety of services to industrial companies. Among its clients have been Tyson, Glad, Pilgrims, Butterball, Georges, Cargill and Land O Frost. Division Manager Monty Stewart, who comes over to the Hope location from Texarkana, said the primary work of the new location here will be with wood industries.
“We’ll do a lot of plywood mills, paper mills, sawmills in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and some around in Arkansas, but mainly wood products,” Steward said.
Asked how many employees would be working at the Hope location, Stewart said, “There’ll be 12 to 14. Companywide, we're probably 275, so we have lots of resources to pull forth from if we need it. But mainly we’ll take care of ourselves. We actually will go help them more than they come and help us.”
At the ribbon-cutting and grand opening, a large gathering formed that included owners Joe Austin, his wife Audra and Dave Stone. The CFO David Knight was also present as Hope Mayor Don Still welcomed the company. “We want to thank you for your investment. Anything the city can do to help you along the way we’re ready to help,” Still said.
Leadership of Hope-Hempstead Chamber of Commerce and Hempstead County Judge Jerry Crane were also there to welcome the new Midland Industrial Services location.
In Stewart’s ribbon-cutting speech, he said, “We really appreciate you all coming out today to help us celebrate this ribbon cut. I'd like to thank everyone that was involved … This was a pretty big deal to move from Texarkana here in 40 days and remodel this building. Complete remodel on the offices and the exterior painting.”
Among the changes to the building was the removal of a 1,200 square feet freezer from what had been a former Schwan’s Food Company building. Stewart then listed additions to the facility. “All new bay doors, exterior painting. All the lighting fixtures have been replaced with LED lights to reduce our footprint. Special thanks to Hope Water and Light. They came and changed the parking lot lights out to LED so we can be as minimal as we can.”
After the ribbon-cutting, a reception was held inside the building where attendees could talk with employees and see the interior design changes while enjoying cookies, banana bread and apple ginger ale punch.
