New firm hires laid-off Jeld-Wen workers

Millwork Products LLC, a Paducah, Ky.-based firm, has opened a new location in Wilkesboro, N.C. and hired most of the former workers of a closed Jeld-Wen facility, according to an article in the Winston-Salem Journal. 

Jeld-Wen closed a door-pre-hanging plant, which originally opened in 2006 in North Wilkesboro, approximately six weeks ago. Jenkins Millworks, a subsidiary of Millwork Products, opened a 48,000-sq.-ft. facility on Monday and hired the bulk of the 54 employees who lost their Jeld-Wen jobs.

"I've known some of these people for decades and competed with them the past 10 years," Millwork president Bob Allen told the newspaper. "I know they are a top-quality and knowledgeable workforce. We probably would not have considered Wilkesboro for the expansion without these workers coming on board."

Millwork is a distributor of pre-hung exterior door units, windows, stair parts and molding. It serves more than 370 lumber yards in western Kentucky, southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana and northwestern Tennessee from its Paducah headquarters.

The Wilkesboro operation will allow Jenkins to distribute a similar assortment in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.

"The business models of Jenkins Millwork LLC and Millwork Products LLC will be very similar," Allen said in the article. "We are a medium-size, privately owned company seeking to partner with other like-minded operators to supply customers in the markets we serve."

The Wilkes Economic Development Corp. assisted the company during its search.