ITW to bring 25 new jobs to Millerton

MILLERTON — The expansion of an international business is having an impact on the village of Millerton, to the tune of 25 new jobs being created. News of ITW’s expansion hit the streets last Thursday, March 31, and had village Trustee Jay Reynolds praising the hard work of the Dutchess County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC), which helped broker the deal.“This is a bit of a news flash,” he said after learning of the arrangement. “Anytime jobs come to a community, it’s great for the business environment. New jobs are the lifeblood of the community.”ITW stands for Illinois Tool Works, Inc. According to its website, it is a “plastic custom molder for precision and micro precision plastic compounds.” The company has a plant in neighboring Lakeville, Conn. According to a release from DCEDC, ITW has “825 decentralized business units that comprise their international business corporation and are located in 52 countries and employ approximately 60,000 men and women.” It is also on the New York Stock Exchange as ITW.The ITW Deltar division has leased a 25,000-square-foot space at Arnoff Moving and Storage for its operations. Arnoff renovated its facilities in 2005, when it moved its central operations from Lakeville to Millerton. The ITW division that is moving to Millerton, will be producing “seating components for the automotive industry,” according to the release.“Arnoff’s goal has always been to attract industry and jobs to this most northeastern corner of Dutchess County,” stated Mike Arnoff about the arrangement. “This is a win-win situation for ITW, Dutchess County and New York state.”According to Reynolds, Arnoff originally tried courting Skip Barber’s Driving School, but that deal never came to fruition. When Barber decided not to take the space at Arnoff’s, the DCEDC helped negotiate on behalf of ITW, which had been looking for something to rent. Gordon Rutherfurd, director of business for DCEDC, said it worked closely with Elyse Harney Real Estate and Mike Arnoff to pull off the deal.Reynolds said the end result is that Millerton comes out a winner. “It helps all of the businesses because you have people who will go to local places to do shopping, or to eat lunch, it could help any of the service-based businesses,” he said. “And ultimately, anytime you bring more salaries into a community, there’s an opportunity for some of that to be spent in the community, and all of that generates sales tax that comes back to the community to some extent.”Reynolds added that the opportunity for Millerton to provide for a company like ITW was limited, so the fact the deal worked out was worth appreciating.“It’s very special, because the opportunity for drawing something like this is very limited because we don’t have the buildings with this kind of space really,” he said. “We normally can draw smaller businesses because we have smaller facilities, drawing businesses with two to five jobs. But having something larger, like in manufacturing, we don’t have the infrastructure to do something like that and we don’t have the buildings, nor do we have the land to put the buildings on, and the town has a very limited supply of correctly zoned places for a place like this. So we’re very lucky this happened.”Bill Thurston, business manager of ITW Deltar, stated he’s “pleased” about the expansion as well as being able “to provide the opportunity for additional jobs in Dutchess County.”