Company applies for $420K grant

A grant application to fund a planned workforce expansion at Aurora Boardworks was given the nod of approval by the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners on Monday. 
The board held a public hearing to take testimony on an application by the company for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). Company officials said the bulk of the $420,000 grant for which they’re applying would be used to hire 12 more full-time workers and some will be used to purchase new equipment. 
With a relatively light agenda for the rest of the meeting, the board had to stall for several minutes until the clock hit 9 a.m., the time set for the hearing. On hand for the hearing were Lori Ferguson of the South Central Economic Development District, the non-profit organization that will administer the grant if it’s received, and Boardworks CEO Gary Bales. No other members of the public were there to comment on the application. 
Ferguson said the amount the company is applying for is $430,000 and $10,000 of that would go to SCEDD for general administrative expenses. The funds would be administered through the county, but SCEDD would submit draw requests in order for the funds to be dispersed. 
Bales said the company has already begun making purchases and has started the hiring process in anticipation of receiving the grant. 
Noting that the company was the recipient of a $1 million grant of leftover federal COVID funds several years ago, Bales said the company had been busy between 2021 and the end of  2023, but then there was a slowdown in orders that lasted until mid-year this year. However, he said in holding true to the values of the company’s founder, Cliff Williams, they have been reluctant to lay off workers. 
“During that time we’ve just been committed to keeping our people,” Bales said. “Being part of the community, my goal is to build a company and if every time we get slow we lay people off it’s gonna be hard to hire people.”
Bales said during that 18-month slow period the company had lost some workers due to attrition, retirements and so on, but when Aurora Boardworks secured a new large customer several months ago and existing customers stepped up orders again, the company has become quite busy leading to a need to add a second shift. 
“That’s really what this is about,” Bales said. “We wanted to staff a second shift, and we’ve even moved some of our other folks around to staff a very skeletal third shift for the last couple of weeks just to keep some machines running that we need to... Ultimately we want to expand the second shift more.”
“Our biggest strength is our people,” Bales said. “We have so many people who have worked for our company for 10, 15, 20 years... We have many who have worked there in excess of 45 years.”  
He said the ultimate goal is to expand the facility more as well. Bales said the additional 12 employees would be in addition to the current 31 full-time workers and he said he expects the expansion project to be completed within 30 months. 
Following the public hearing the board approved several necessary supporting documents for the application, thus giving it the official nod of approval.