All About Woodstock: Little-known employers have big impact

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WOODSTOCK – Many Woodstock companies affect McHenry County and beyond.

Brown Printing Co., which produces more than 200 weekly, biweekly and monthly business and consumer publications, recently added 40,000 square feet and 130 jobs to its plant at 11595 McConnell Road. Wells Manufacturing Inc. also completed a $5 million warehouse addition to its plant at 2100 W. Lake Shore Drive. Combined, they provide more than 1,300 jobs.

Other major area employers include Centegra Health System, Catalent Pharma Solutions, D.B. Hess Co., Silgan Tubes Corp., Knight Plastics, Claussen Pickle Co., and two large governmental entities – school District 200 and the McHenry County Government Center. But it doesn’t end there.

Guardian Electric Manufacturing

1425 Lake Ave., Woodstock

Eighty-five-year-old Guardian Electric consolidated three manufacturing facilities into its 100,000-square-foot plant off Kilkenny Court in the early 1990s. It manufactures electromechanical assemblies, motion-control components, filters, precision molded products, metal bellows and grips for the aerospace, automotive, health care, entertainment, printing, trucking, video game and agriculture industries. It also has military and commercial applications, such as sensors and electrical push-pull devices used in vending machines and security gates.

“We have over 2,000 customers,” company president Kevin Kelly said. “Not one customer or one industry represents more than 8 [percent] to 10 percent of our business.”

All of the components are designed and manufactured in the United States.

MAC Automation Concepts Inc.

1760 Kilkenny Court, Woodstock

Molding Automation Concepts Inc. prides itself on making innovative parts sorting and transfer systems.

The 28-year-old company began in Marengo and later moved to Huntley before relocating in 1990 to a 43,000-square-foot plant at 1760 Kilkenny Court in Woodstock.

“We make parts management systems for the injection molding industry,” company operations manager Theresa Reynolds said, “anything plastic, anything molded.”

The 30 to 40 employees make automated parts management systems for the automotive and medical industries, but it doesn’t end there. Other customers include Gerber, Baxter Healthcare, Abbott Labs, and Tyco International Ltd.

“In our box-fill system, the injection molded parts come out of the press, separated and conveyed right into boxes,” Reynolds said. “We do it by count or by weight. It allows people to run lights out.”

Senario LLC

1725 Kilkenny Court, Woodstock

Begun eight years ago in McHenry, this toy and consumer product company moved its headquarters to Woodstock about five years ago. Its 35 employees focus on research, development, marketing and sales. Manufacturing occurs in Hong Kong, company marketing coordinator Julia Bosman said.

Bosman said its most popular products – among the company’s 30 product lines – were REmarkables washable fabric coloring books, Vu-Me digital photo cubes, My Secret Pillow plush diaries for “tween” girls, and Huru Humi interactive dolls.

The latter uses radio frequency voice recognition technology to sense other Huru Humi figures. Each boasts unique personalities, facial expressions and voices. And they can be customized.

Senario also has licensing rights with more than 150 top brands – including Disney’s Hannah Montana and “High School Musical,” Pixar’s “Cars,” and “Sesame Street” that are used with products sold at retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Kohl’s and Toys “R” Us. The private company racked up $53 million in sales last year, and it expected to do even better in 2008.