by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
After less than two years of operation, the Canadian-based E.T. Manufacturing will close its plant in Sartell at the end of this month.
The news was a disappointment to many, especially to the nearly two dozen employees whose jobs will be terminated.
In the summer of 2014, Edmonton Trailer opened a welding operation in a 30,000 square-foot building that had been part of the Verso Paper Co. which ceased operations after an explosion and fire ruined the plant.
The huge storage-type building occupied by E.T. was located at 101 Benton Drive just to the southeast side of the Sartell bridge.
Edmonton Trailer Sales and Leasing, based in Acheson, Alberta, specializes in the production and sale of heavy transportation equipment for the trucking industry. The Sartell plant, the first U.S. branch of E.T., was a place where truck trailers were welded.
E.T. CEO Brent Horn said the Sartell plant’s closing was a very hard decision to make. It was made necessary, he said, because of worldwide economic factors beyond the company’s control. Those circumstances, he added, included the precipitous decline in oil prices and the subsequent devaluation of the Canadian dollar. Due to the decline of oil production in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, E.T. was forced to export many of its transportation products to other countries.
