Crusher company comeback.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

With a surge in federal highway spending and strong demand for its products, JCI Inc., a Eugene-based maker of rock-crushing equipment, is hiring as quickly as it can find qualified workers.

The company has 20 immediate openings for machinists, welders and other positions, and will most likely have more, president and general manager Jeff Elliott said.

In the past two years, JCI has added 80 employees, pushing its head count past the 250-employee mark.

It's a comeback story for local professionals in this industry. Many of them formerly worked for another local firm, ElJay.

ElJay abruptly closed its Eugene operation in 1995 and laid off 265 employees when its parent company, defense contractor Raytheon Co., transferred the work to a different division, Cedarapids Inc. in Iowa.

Shortly after the closure, a handful of ElJay executives formed JCI.

When ElJay moved to Iowa, customers continued to call the people they were used to working with in Eugene, and that's how JCI got started, Elliott said.

Mark Slinker, crushing superintendent at Delta Sand & Gravel in Eugene, said he was glad to see Johnson Crushers International, or JCI, fill the void.

"It was a really bad deal for us producers because we had (ElJay) here in town, and we relied on them greatly" for parts and maintenance, Slinker said.

Slinker said he has known the principals of JCI for years and respects their abilities. "We know they have excellent equipment," he said. "They're time-proven designs."

In 1998, Astec Industries Inc., a publicly traded equipment maker based in Chattanooga, Tenn., bought JCI. Astec has 13 divisions: 11 in the United States, one in Canada and one in South Africa.

A year later, Astec bought the 130,000-square-foot former ElJay plant at 86470 Franklin Blvd. for $4 million.

Astec continues to invest in the Eugene operation. It recently outfitted the factory with $3 million in new equipment, Elliott said.

With manufacturing equipment costing hundreds of thousands - even millions - of dollars, the costs of entry into this business are huge, he said. That narrows JCI's competition to just a few companies worldwide: Metso, based in Finland, Sandvik in Sweden, and Pegson, which is based in the United Kingdom, Elliott said.

But JCI stands out from the rest, he said, because of its new product development, the main driver of its rapid growth.

JCI's average annual sales growth since 2002 is more than 20 percent, which exceeds the industry average, Elliott said.

The portability of JCI's equipment, namely its Fast Pack rock processing system and its Fast Trax track-mounted rock crushers and screens, appeals to customers, Elliott said. More and more materials are being processed on-site, which avoids transport costs and fees to dump scrap material at the landfill, he said.

Most of JCI's customers are based in the United States, but its international business is growing, Elliott said. The company's top three world markets are Canada, South America and India, he said.

Meanwhile, back at home, Elliott said it's a challenge to find skilled people to fill the job openings at JCI. Machinists are particularly hard to find because they fit into that demographic group of baby boomers who are retiring in droves, plus the job requires more technical skills as machining equipment has become computerized.

JCI is trying to attract machinists and other skilled tradespeople with wages averaging $12 to $20 an hour, plus a full benefits package worth $5 to $7.50 an hour, Elliott said.

Walking from team to team on JCI's production floor, Elliott likened the company's rock crusher to a Swiss watch - "a 60,000-pound Swiss watch' - because the tolerances of the parts are so close.

"People put rocks in it for 10 or 20 years and expect it to last, and it does - under some of the harshest conditions," he said.

JCI INC. Manufacturer of rock crushing equipment Location: 86470 Franklin Blvd., Eugene Founded: 1995 by Bob Hoitt, Roger Clark, Terry Cummings, Allen Laskey, Randy Orre and Dave Peaks Employees: More than 250 Parent company: Since 1998, a division of Astec Industries Inc., based in Chattanooga, Tenn. Astec financials: Profit of $33.3 million on sales of $548.5 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30