Greatbatch Opens New Factory

Advanced Battery Technology, Sep 2005

Greatbatch Inc. opened its new 120,000-square-foot plant in Alden, New York, in August. The plant will combine all of the company's battery and capacitor manufacturing operations in a single facility.

"The most advanced, up-to-date manufacturing facility for medical batteries in the world is here in Alden," Edward F. Voboril, Greatbatch's chairman and chief executive officer, told employees gathered outside the plant's main entrance. "The plant provides a solid foundation for a very bright future together."

The $40 million facility will allow Greatbatch to combine battery and capacitor manufacturing operations that previously were spread among facilities in Amherst, Clarence, and Cheektowaga, New York. "It also will bring engineering and support operations under a single roof, creating further efficiencies," says Thomas J. Hook, the company's president and chief operating officer.

The technology that the company is built around was developed by pacemaker inventor Wilson Greatbatch, who attended the opening ceremony and toured the facility. Thirty-five years after its founding the company has become one of the Buffalo region's bigger private sector employers with about 800 workers.