LIMESTONE, Maine — Loring Industries, a newly formed LLC that specializes in refurbishing vehicles and parts, will have six to eight new employees next week, and if all goes well will hire 200 more in the next three to five years, a company official said Thursday.
Loring Industries, which is located at the Loring Commerce Centre on the former Loring Air Force base property, will assist neighboring Maine Military Authority in its project refurbishing public buses for the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, said Tim McCabe, who is in charge of business development for Loring Industries.
While workers in the Limestone area began refurbishing buses last year as part of a contract with MBTA, many were laid off as the terms were renegotiated due to cost overruns. However, Carl Flora, president and CEO of the Loring Development Authority which oversees operations on the former base, said this week that MMA has since “rehired a fair number of people.”
“Loring Industries will support MMA with purchasing parts and components, doing inventory on those components, and then delivering them to the production line,” McCabe said. “The second task for them is to man their teardown stations, meaning that when the Boston bus comes in, they’ll train our crew on how to disassemble it.”
McCabe said Loring Industries also is seeking contracts to refurbish large tour buses.
Pay range for the current new jobs is between $10 and $18 per hour, but McCabe said future projects would have a broader range with some higher pay as the company searches for individuals with different skill sets.
More jobs could be in the offing for the former base property as well, as Flora called for an emergency meeting ot the Loring Development Authority on May 16 to discuss “economic development activities.”
Flora said the discussions were “time sensitive” and had to be held in executive session. He cited state law allowing for such closed door sessions when “premature disclosures of the information would prejudice the competitive or bargaining position of the body or agency.”
Even though they were only given an hour and a half notice for the meeting, 11 of 13 board members — 10 of them via conference call — were able to participate in the executive session.
Flora said Thursday that it is “very likely” that the matters discussed at Tuesday’s session will be publicly revealed at the LDA’s next regularly meeting which is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 21 in the LDA board room at 154 Development Drive, Suite F, in Limestone.
The discussions, he said, may lead to “something happening quickly” that could “turn into something that would be of interest to the development effort.” He added, however, that there also is a chance it “won’t materialize quickly.”
Before going into executive session on Tuesday, Flora recapped some of the recent positive developments at the Loring Commerce Center, such as the golf course opening for the year, Maine Military Authority getting back to work on buses, and a job fair held by Loring Industries.
“[Loring Industries] is actively recruiting workers as they begin to dive into projects,” said Flora. “Their primary project is to source parts for MBTA for the Maine Military Authority, and they may be helping with certain phases of the MBTA bus project.”
On the whole, both Flora and McCabe said things are looking up for Loring Industries, and the former Air Force base in general.
