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Timber Creek will add 25, double output
By Connie Jo Discoe Regional editor
STRATTON -- Timber Creek Homes of Stratton will hire 25 more employees through June and July, and double production to 21/2 finished homes a week.
Co-owner Charles Pelkey said the new hirings will fill positions in the factory-- carpentry, electricity, plumbing, heating and air conditioning, trim carpentry, roofing, siding and painting/dry wall.
Pelkey said the factory will operate one shift-- from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday -- through the remainder of the year. A second shift is planned next year, he said, with more hirings and increased production again.
Pelkey said Timber Creek is always seeking good qualified people and hires locally whenever possible.
About half of the factory employees and applicants are already skilled in the trades, he said, and co-owner Carl Rasmussen and group leaders train the rest. "Carl does a good job of assessing an individual's skills, and getting him or her in the right spot on the floor," Pelkey said.
Timber Creek employs 70, including 20 in non-factory positions. "Seventy jobs," Pelkey mused. "That's a gob of jobs for a community in Southwest Nebraska."
Pelkey said many people are leaving metropolitan areas to "come back home," to raise families in smaller communities ... to be near family. "The fact they can find good employment opportunities may hasten, or enhance, their return home," he said.
This month, Timber Creek starts its largest project ever -- a 15-unit condominium for Breckenridge, Colo. Each unit is three stories, with the master bedroom suite on the top floor.
"This is the first multi-family project for Timber Creek," Pelkey said.
The majority of Timber Creek's homes are built for Colorado, he said, because there is more building activity in Colorado than in Kansas and Nebraska.
"The price of houses is substantially higher in Colorado, too," Pelkey said. Pre-constructed homes are attractive, he said, because they are less expensive than on-site construction.