Kimber Arms moving headquarters from New York to Troy, creating 366 Alabama jobs

It’s about time Kimber wised up.

Just hope they offered relocation opportunities for their current employees.

I hope they create a Customer Service Department in the new location.

Good for them, good riddance to NY.

Does this now mean all aspects are out of NY?

whughett said:

Just hope they offered relocation opportunities for their current employees.

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Good for Kimber. I have mixed feelings on relocation as its probably safe to say that more than half voted themselves into this situation.

Poper said:

I hope they create a Customer Service Department in the new location.

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To be fair, if you got a native New Yorker they were probably trying to be nice and you just couldn't tell.

I'm a damn yankee, so I get to say that.

This old Alabama boy is just that much more likely to buy a Kimber... .

whughett said:

Just hope they offered relocation opportunities for their current employees.

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That would be a nice thing for Kimber to do, but how long do you think that a New Yorker could last in Alabama?

The relocated employee would have to learn a whole new culture and language. That ain't easy.

A great many of those folks are just working people. The fact that they are building guns wouldn’t likely mean they voting liberals into office. Moot point most likely. Working people have families, tough to pack up and move a thousand miles unless the pay and bennies be tops.

The NE is working to run manufacturing out, especially if it is firearms. Henry I think is still up there and Colt (unless they went bankrupt again), Ruger keeps a presence but I don't think its large. Not sure about any others. The rest left a long time ago.

Henry has admin offices inn NJ; manufacturing is in (IIRC) Wisconsin

I fled NYS sixteen years ago. Good for Kimber.

Let's hope it does not go the way it did for Remington...

Alabama wasn't Remington's problem; it was the mgt company that played some fast games with the cash in Remington.

mcb said:

Let's hope it does not go the way it did for Remington...

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They probably learned what not to do by watching the Remington fiasco.

I’m sure labor in Alabama is a hell of a lot cheaper too.

I lived in Yonkers for 25 years.
Any Kimber employee that makes the relocation is in for a shock.
They're going to miss food. Especially Pizza and bagels.
But they're going to love the lifestyle. and BBQ.

AFS

Legionnaire said:

I fled NYS sixteen years ago.

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Almost 16 years for us as well....

I hope the move works well for them. I saw their announcement a coupla years ago when they made the deal with the state to build there.

The closest I ever had to a hometown or state was Huntsville, Alabama (Army brat, lived in five different countries before I was 12... then Redstone Arsenal and Huntsville until I went into the service at age 19). Alabama is a great place to raise a family... Huntsville and the surrounding area has lots of engineers and other highly skilled technical types due to the space industry. Many, many came from other parts of the country... so it’s not all redneck city. I still have family there and visit every two months (if the virus will give us a break).

For all you New Yorkers who do make the move... please remember that if NY was such a great place.... you’d still be there.

Mark 40 said:

Almost 16 years for us as well....

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I left NYC in 1974 to go to college; you couldn't give me a $5,000,000 condo to live and exist in NYC

As an Ohio Transplant to Huntsville and having a friend in Troy. I have to say Troy is very very different than Huntsville.

That is good and bad for Kimber. On the bad side it will be hard to get people to want to move to such a remote location in South Alabama. On the good side, once you get them there they are not going to get lured away as easily by the big aero-space and defense companies as happened to Remington here in Huntsville.

I have a couple friends who moved away because of factory relocations, have a couple clients with manufacturing or who have built office complexes in the middle of nowhere. It's a problem. MANY will not relocate, not just from current employees, but generally trying to hire ends up being 90% locals. And the locals relative to the big cities (esp the coasts) are few, far between, less educated (not stupid: but in absolute terms, less education), have worse transport/transit options, worse telecom networks, etc. etc. etc.

Assuring full staffing, every day, becomes a much different job. Snow days are shut downs more often than they were, for example. Even running supplies JIT can be harder due to more bottlenecks in transport typically. Assuring QA will often be an issue as well so the end result is: cost savings don't pan out as expected, but execs are often cheapskates and insist on their targets so something else gets cut.

Hoping for the best but: not simple, hope they take their time to transition, hire people who understand all this, and that enough line managers come over so they don't loose the base of knowledge of how operations work today.