White County is the new home of the industry support company Quality Service Group.
Quality Service Group helps manufacturers around the Upper Cumberland and the nation with quality inspections, assembly and package sorting.
Quality Service Group General Manager Lucas Gunter said the move to a bigger facility in White County, means more jobs for the area.
“We’ve got to continue to organize, but we hope to bring in an additional 30 to 40 jobs,” Gunter said. “To White County over the next 6 months easily.”
Gunter said the light assembly and packaging jobs will have a start pay ranging from $10.50 to $13.00. The move to White County was possible thanks to an over $1 million dollar loan through the CARES Act.
“When COVID hit, we saw a reduction in sales on percentage level of going from 100 percent to about 20 percent,” Gunter said. “For a short time, we saw virtually zero percent, so it was devastating to our business.”
That CARES Act money took Quality Service Group from a 40,000 square foot building to a 105,000 square foot location, where Jackson Kayak used to be. Gunter said this allows them to better assist manufacturers.
“A lot of your manufacturing facilities send parts and their product out of the plant to somewhere off-site,” Gunter said. “That puts us in a strategic position with the space expansion that we have here.”
Some of the Upper Cumberland manufacturers that Quality Service Group assists are Cummins Filtration, Rebo Lighting, THK Rhythm and SHIROKI. Currently, Quality Service Group employs anywhere between 15 to 100 people, depending on the amount of projects.