Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner with Hoffer Plastics employees (left to right) Margarita Noriega, Heather Horner and Monica Cruz.

In February, Atalys announced that it is tripling the size of its existing facility in the Dominican Republic from 15,000 to 47,000 square feet through the addition of a new 32,000-square-foot building. The company said that the new building will be dedicated to manual assembly with complementary injection molding, pad printing, tool repair, and warehousing. The existing facility will become the company's primary plastics processing site focused on cleanroom injection molding as well as secondary operations such as testing and packaging.

Manufacturing is the second largest industry in Illinois, with more than 12,000 firms employing nearly 600,000 Illinoisans. Ninety-two percent of the state’s exports are manufactured products.

Hoffer Plastics is a family owned and operated, third-generation custom plastics injection molding manufacturer. It produces millions of plastic parts annually for a range of industries and end uses such as food and beverage packaging, automotive, personal care, consumer, industrial and aeronautics. Hoffer Plastics also prides itself on being an innovator in environmental sustainability.

Earlier this week, another medical injection molder made news when Total Molding Services announced that it has been acquired by Haartz Family Holdings, changing its name to Moldgenix in the process.

Schnipke has tooling and plastic injection molding operations at its headquarters in Ottoville, OH, and operates a second manufacturing facility in Tucson, AZ. The company is FDA registered and is certified to ISO 13485:2016.

Gov. Rauner acknowledged that it's hard for families to start a business and take risks. "Most of them fail. It's tough," he said. Rauner said the Hoffer family took the risks associated with starting a business and had success in building and growing the company into a global manufacturing firm. “You guys are a great team," he said.

Plastics injection molder Atalys LLC announced yesterday that it has acquired Schnipke Engraving Co. LLC. Both companies provide injection molding and related services to medical device OEMs. Atalys, based in Rochester, NY, said the acquisition will enhance its manufacturing capabilities, technology, and geographical footprint.

The company has its own onsite power generation plant and has a legacy of giving back generously to the community. It enjoys an exceptionally high employee satisfaction and retention rate. The average employee tenure at the company is 14 years, and there are several multi-generational employee families. Founded in 1953, Hoffer Plastics won the 2015 Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award and was a recent Plastics Caps & Closures Innovation Award finalist for its Trust-T-Lok plastic closure.

In addition to its headquarters in Rochester, Atalys has manufacturing facilities in Asheboro, NC, and the Dominican Republic. The New York and North Carolina plants have multiple Class 8 cleanrooms for molding and assembly on site; the Santo Domingo site in the Dominican Republic offers cleanroom assembly and automation. The company said it adheres to scientific molding principles and is equipped with presses ranging in size from “near micro molding” to 1,400 tons.

Governor Rauner’s “Built in Illinois” month tour will continue across the state through the month of October. He ended his visit to Hoffer Plastics by awarding the company with a proclamation for “Built in Illinois” month in recognition of its role and contributions as a longstanding manufacturer and employer as well as industry and community leader.

Founded in 1967, Schnipke has established a reputation for building tools in-house and designing and engineering molds that meet the medical device industry's stringent requirements for precision at extremely tight tolerances, said the news release. The company claims on its website that it can mold within tolerances of +/-0.001 inches and as small as 0.02 grams in weight. Even smaller dimensions can be accommodated upon customer request.

A family owned and operated, third-generation custom plastics injection molding manufacturer, Hoffer Plastics (South Elgin, IL) produces millions of plastic parts annually for a range of industries.

“We are honored to have Governor Rauner visit us and talk about manufacturing and workforce development,” said President and CEO William Hoffer. “It is an important part of our mission to develop our employees as well as retain the ones we have. We were honored to have him here and hopefully we can work together on improving the employment situation in our area and certainly within the state.”

"Our acquisition of Schnipke was driven by a focused strategy to deepen our capabilities, capacity, and technical superiority across the entire manufacturing process for medical device components,” said Vinc Ellerbrock, president and CEO of Atalys. “The addition of Schnipke adds two manufacturing sites for scalable growth, broadens our geographic presence and reach, enables us to serve a wider array of customers, and significantly augments our technical capabilities,” said Ellerbrock.

Hoffer Plastics takes pride in its company values of “family, service, integrity and trust” and in fostering a culture where “employees are treated like family.”

Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

On Friday, Oct. 6, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner celebrated National Manufacturing Month with a visit to Hoffer Plastics Corp. (South Elgin, IL), where he kicked off his  October “Built in Illinois Month” tour. He spent the afternoon at the Hoffer Plastics facilities and had the opportunity to meet and talk with employees from many different parts of the company.

Until she retired in September 2021, Clare Goldsberry reported on the plastics industry for more than 30 years. In addition to the 10,000+ articles she has written, by her own estimation, she is the author of several books, including The Business of Injection Molding: How to succeed as a custom molder and Purchasing Injection Molds: A buyers guide. Goldsberry is a member of the Plastics Pioneers Association. She reflected on her long career in "Time to Say Good-Bye."