HAGER HILL Irene and David Morris could have packed up and taken jobs elsewhere, maybe back home in Ohio or Michigan, when the owner of the manufacturing company retired and sold out. If that had happened, Atlantic India Rubber Co. grommets and parts might be made in China now. But the Morrises working as manager and executive decided they’d poured nearly 10 years of their life into building the factory in Johnson County. They cared about their employees, all hired locally when the 90 plus year-old company moved from Illinois and Ohio in 2003.
They cared that the rubber parts used on Harley Davidson motorcycles and Arctic Cat snowmobiles and Boeing jets are made in the U.S.A. They wanted to save their jobs. And ultimately, Irene Morris said, the company survived “one of the toughest years ever” for manufacturers, so “we knew the business was sound.” So the couple, whose children are grown and whose only debt was a mortgage and a car loan, borrowed nearly $1.3 million to buy out their employer last summer.
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