Intermountain Electronics has announced a $12-million expansion that will double the size of their Centralia Industrial Park Plant and add more employees.
The company manufactures backup power systems for data centers that cannot have any downtime if there is an electrical outage. They report a growing demand as the number of data centers and now AI centers grow.
Human Relations Director Brenda Malone says the project also means more jobs.
“With a look back just two years, we had 47 employees total in this building,” Malone said. “During the past two years, we’ve gone from 47 people up to 141. We have hired or added headcount to our facility, almost 100 people in two years’ time. The forecast as we double our manufacturing space here is going to be to add another approximately 35 to 40 people. That will be within one year.”
The jobs are for skilled tradesmen in the area of carpentry, electrical, plumbers and pipefitters and construction workers.
General Manager Tim Benedict says the type of work completed by the plant continues to evolve.
“We started it was more of mining, and as mining depreciated, we got into solar and wind, and as that kind of depreciated we got into what was next,” Benedict said. “We’ve been able to grow with demand, wherever it’s at.”
While some industries complain about being located in Illinois, Benedict says it has been good for Intermountain Electronics.
“The incentives that the state of Illinois offers here have been really good. We do a lot of business. There’s a data center in Chicago that’s always right here at our back door, and we can ship in all directions. We can ship to West Virginia, Ohio, northern Illinois, St. Louis. We’re kind of centralized right here.”
Benedict says the project scheduled to begin in January or February will allow for a better assembly line for building the large power systems and double their capacity. AI projects are expected to become part of the operation as well.
Construction on one of the temporary power supplies made at IE in Centralia. Photo by Bruce Kropp.
