Plant Manager Says DuPont Hopes to Stay in Victoria

By Thomas Doyle, Victoria Advocate, Texas

May 11–DuPont hasn’t completely left Victoria.

“We’re here today to tell you that we are still here,” said Gary Burge, plant manager for the DuPont Packaging and Industrial Polymers Victoria Plant, a low-density polyethylene plant in Victoria.

Burge directed his comments to a crowd of about 100 people at the monthly Victoria Chamber of Commerce/Texas Association of Business luncheon Wednesday at the Victoria College.

The plant employs about 100 people, including 15 or so contractors, in the manufacture of about 150 different grades of plastics used in products such as food packaging, wire and cable insulation, automotive parts and footwear, he said.

The present DuPont plant was once just a production unit in a much larger DuPont facility in Victoria that began with the opening of the nylon intermediates plant in 1951, Burge said. At one time the large complex employed more than 1,000 people.

Over the past several years the plant has been divided and sold to different companies.

It became a stand-alone company in May 2004 when Koch Industries purchased the plant from Invista.

The remaining DuPont plant is facing many of the same issues as the rest of the chemical industry as a whole, Burge said.

With the booming U.S. economy, it is harder and harder for plants in rural areas to attract new skilled labor, scientists and engineers, he said.

In the next five years, DuPont will have to replace about 25 percent of its workforce due to retirement and attrition.

The plant is also dealing with the rising costs of natural gas, which the plant uses as a source of raw materials and power, he said.

“I’d like to see us be here another 50 years. We’ll see how it goes,” Burge said.

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