Fox Business Report to feature Independence company

An Independence manufacturer will get some national exposure later this month on a segment of the Fox Business Report.

East Iowa Plastics, owned by Bret and Jean Kivell, will be featured on Manufacturing Marvels, which showcases American manufacturers, their products and processes. A production crew spent about six hours Monday filming the segment in the company's 46,000-square-foot plant at 601 17th St. SE in Independence.

The segment is expected to air between 8:30 and 8:44 p.m., April 17.

East Iowa Plastics makes contract and proprietary thermoformed products, and its processes include sheet extrusion, film to sheet lamination, thermoforming, injection molding and CNC routing operations. The company also manufactures decorative exterior residential shutters, several items for the poultry industry and a variety of custom products for other businesses.

Jean Kivell said her husband was contacted by a representative of Marvel Production Group of Dallas, which produces Manufacturing Marvels for the business network.

'They were looking for a thermoforming company on Google, and our company name popped up,” she said. 'Bret was asked if we were interested and we agreed.”

The Kivells bought the company in 1997 from ABT Building Products of Neenah, Wis.

'Bret was working as a business consultant,” recalled George Lake, director of the Buchanan County Economic Development Commission. 'He was asked by the previous owner to come in and review the company. Bret saw some possibilities and ended up buying it.”

Jean Kivell said East Iowa Plastics, which operates with a lean staff of 10 but has customers worldwide, is cautious about adding employees, making sure it has the long-term sales to support more workers.

'We don't like to lay people off,” she said. 'Our Iowa unemployment rate has been zero for the last couple of years.

'We try to guarantee our people 40-plus hours each week. There are a lot of times when we probably should be laying people off, but we don't.”