Dajcor Aluminum Limited announces new investment in Chatham-Kent

By Aaron Hall – Daily Post Editor

Thanks to some local private investment, a facility that has been shut down since November will be injected with new life once again.

At a press conference Monday morning (May 10) at the former Daymonex facility in Chatham, local businessman Mike Kilby announced a brand new venture and business – Dajcor Aluminum Limited.

“Dajcor is a brand new state-of-the-art aluminum, extrusion, anodizing and fabricating facility,” Kilby, who is the owner of the company, said at the press conference. “Within a couple of years we expect to be employing between 50 and 100 people in Chatham-Kent. We have a very skilled workforce here in Chatham-Kent, an excellent facility and an ideal location with access to the mid-west United States and Canada… it’s going to position us well to be competitive and make this company successful.”

Kilby said more preparation is needed to prepare the facility and the equipment for operation, but expects to be “extruding” products by the end of the month.

He added that the process to get the idea off the ground took approximately eight weeks from start to finish.

Kilby said there were many reasons for how the venture came together so quickly, and why he wanted to invest in the project.

“The facility, the cost structure of the facility, the willingness of the union to come to the table for a win-win situation as far as wage and benefits go,” he said. “A central-location in Chatham-Kent as far as the market place that we want to serve… all those things were very attractive, and we were able to put a deal together that made sense. An existing facility, existing equipment (this) made resurrecting a company like this possible.”

Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope said it was a total team effort to bring back these jobs to the community.

“Today marks a day of success,” Hope said. “The trade union, the management, the government have worked cooperatively together to find an answer to a problem that we all face, with the economy and job losses. Today we can talk about gaining those job losses back, creating the market place and making ourselves a leader in the aluminum industry.

CAW Local 127 President Aaron Neaves said the arrival of Dajcor showcases a great example of the union working working together with private investors.

Neaves gave praise to Kilby and his team for making the investment.

“The easy part is negotiating the deal… the tough part is finding a local investor with local community roots who knows what it meant to be here,” Neaves said. “This should dispel the myth once and for all that you can’t take a union, and you can’t take a private business and work together. That myth today has been dispelled.”

Kilby added that any position that becomes available with the company will be posted on the Government Job Bank as well as in local newspapers.