By Emily Matesic

Less than two months after purchasing the former Cummins plant in Wautoma, Mayville Engineering Company, or MEC, has revived the plant. Major production is not yet underway at the former Cummins, but for new hires like Gary Vroman, who spent 23 years working at Cummins before the facility shut down in March 2009, going back to work here is what he's always wanted.

"It's a great thing. It's something I missed with my other job, the people you talked to every day, to build things, to get things done. It's a great thing to come back," Vroman said. In fact, all of the men working at the facility Monday agreed. They are ten of 23 new hires -- 16 who used to work for Cummins.

Most say they jumped from job to job after being laid off and couldn't be happier to be working side by side again. "We know how one person can put something together. We know their strengths and weaknesses, and we can actually we'll work with these people and make them better, and hopefully MEC will like that and it will give them a better bottom line," Carl Kaehn said. A bottom line that will be impacted sooner rather than later, especially since equipment has already been delivered to the Wautoma facility and will be up and running before anyone anticipated.

"We'll be in production later this afternoon, and that wasn't scheduled to come up for at least another month or so," Vroman said. With operations here ahead of schedule, Mayville hopes to have the facility fully operational by the end of the year, adding at least another 75 employees.

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