Sukup celebrates 60 years

work is still an option for employees in some departments. Hybrid schedules are also available for those who want to work in the o ce on some days and from home on others.

pany that is able to provide meaningful benefits to keep employees here and show that we go above and beyond,” she said.

MARY PIEPER

Special to the Globe Gazette

She eld-based Sukup Manufacturing has a lot to celebrate during its 60th anniversary this year.

Emily Schmitt, chief administrative o cer and legal counsel for Sukup, said the company had one of its best years ever in 2022 and is looking for even greater success in 2023.

“We are coming out of the pandemic as a stronger company,” she said.

Sukup has furthered its reach in North Iowa over the past few years by opening new facilities and expanding others.

The company recently opened a site in Clear Lake that now has more than two dozen employees. The team there is focused on producing mixed-flow dryers.

In May 2022, Sukup hosted a ribbon cutting for an expansion at its Manly facility. This site started as a rail facility to bring in raw materials for Sukup, but it now also boasts a manufacturing facility on the north side.

By adding more machines, Sukup was able to double its employment at the Manly site to 15, according to Samantha Petersburg, the company’s director of human resources.

The company opened two new facilities in Hampton in 2021, and the o ce space at its Ames location has tripled in size.

But the She eld plant, which employs 500 of the company’s 600 employees, and the She eld community remain at the heart of what Sukup does.

Earlier this year Sukup announced a partnership with Charlie Brown Preschool & Child Care, West Fork Schools, and United Bank and Trust She eld/ Hampton to build a child care center in She eld. She eld has only one other child-care center, which is currently full. Schmitt said community leaders got together last year to decide how to fill the need for local child care. The group decide to apply for a Future Ready Iowa Childcare Infrastructure grant, which provides funds for businesses starting child-care centers on site or near their site.

The She eld child-care project received $1.2 million in grant funds and is now raising matching funds.

The child-care center, which is expected to open in the fall of 2024, will have capacity for 150 children.

“We already have a waiting list,” Schmitt said.

Sukup sees the day care center as a way to support its employees, according to Petersburg. She said the company has workers commuting to She eld from a nine-county area, so having child care available in that community is important to them.

Employees at the Sukup plant who enroll their children at the new day care center will be able to visit them during lunch breaks, according to Schmitt.

“Those little benefits are crucial and that’s one of the awesome parts of working for a family-owned and operated company that focuses on family at the heart of everything they do,” she said.

Over the past year, Sukup has focused on internal promotions to fill management positions.

James Perez, who has been working at the Sheffield plant for nearly a decade, was promoted to plant manager in 2022 to replace retiring manager John Swanson, who held that position for 44 years.

Matt Koch, the head of IT at Sukup, was recently selected as the company’s chief marketing o cer.

Schmitt said the COVID-19 pandemic “gave us an opportunity to look at how we were doing things,” particularly from an HR perspective.

Sukup had to adapt quickly and provide remote work options that weren’t there before, as well as more flexible schedules for those whose jobs required them to work on-site, she said.

Petersburg said remote

The company recently announced it is o ering paid maternity leave. Each employee now also received two floating holidays.

“We are a Christian company, but we know some employees have other important holidays, so that was something we wanted to show our workforce we are there to support as well,” Schmitt said.

Many people, including Sukup employees, re-examined their priorities in the aftermath of the pandemic, according to Petersburg.

“We want to be that com-

To celebrate Sukup’s 60th anniversary, the company is doing a matching fund campaign to build 30 additional Safe T Homes, which it began manufacturing in 2010 as a housing solution for the developing world. Sukup is planning a charity golf tournament this summer that will feature celebrities to help raise money for the Safe T Homes.

In addition, special anniversary events for Sukup employees are in the works.

“We are proud to be in North Iowa,” Petersburg said. “We continue to invest in this area, and take pride in being a manufacturer in Iowa.”