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Miamisburg company considering move to Indiana

Thaler Machine Company leans toward staying in Ohio, but is talking with Indiana

Ty Greenlees/Dayton Daily News

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By Tiffany Johnson and John Nolan
Staff Writer Updated 8:08 PM Saturday, November 28, 2009

MIAMISBURG — Thaler Machine Co. has taken pains to diversify its business among defense, aerospace and automotive customers, to avoid excessive dependence on the demand of any one market for its precision-machined products.

“We’ve been very blessed to be diversified,” said Greg Donson, vice president for engineering, noting that it helped in recent years during the slump in the automotive industry. “We’ve worked very hard to stay that way.”

The family-owned company has made parts that are on satellites, and others intended for the James Webb Space Telescope, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to launch in 2014.

Thaler Machine’s work force of about 70 employees in Miamisburg and Dayton includes five who have been with the company more than 30 years, and one — toolmaker Oren Hughes — who has worked there for 51 years. The company was founded in 1952 and still operates a Dayton facility, at 257 Hopeland St., that dates to Thaler’s earliest years. It occupied its Miamisburg site at 1195 Mound Rd. in 1994.

So the company hasn’t taken lightly its search for a site for consolidation and expansion that might prompt Thaler to leave Ohio for Columbus, Ind., where it also has customers and support for the machining industry.

The company is leaning toward staying in the Dayton area, but is still talking with Ohio and Indiana economic development officials to evaluate information about incentives that could help with the costs of relocation, said Pete Thaler, a vice president who is grandson of the founder, also named Peter Thaler. It could be January before the company is ready to announce its decision, he said in an interview Monday, Nov. 23.

The company has outgrown both its facilities, and particularly needs space for the products it is preparing to ship, Pete Thaler said. The company has customers across the United States and internationally.

In September, Ohio awarded Thaler Machine a 50 percent job-creation tax credit worth $171,324 over six years, based on the assumption the company will relocate to Springboro. The company would be required to maintain operations at the site for 12 years, Ohio officials said.

The company has looked at three or four sites, including in Moraine, Donson said.

Thaler Machine also is competing through both Ohio and Indiana for government assistance with the costs of installing energy-efficiency lighting and other equipment in the facility that ultimately is chosen for expansion. The Ohio energy program, funded with federal economic stimulus money, pits Thaler against other companies competing for funds for their projects, said Bob Grevey, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Development.

There is no deadline for announcing a decision on that funding, Grevey said.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp., a public-private entity supporting economic development in that state, declined to reveal what it has offered Thaler Machine.

<p class="note">Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.</p>

Thaler Machine Co.’s reach

More than 90 percent of the company’s customers are located outside of Ohio, but the bulk of its vendors are within Ohio. The company’s work with nickel alloy, titanium, composite materials and other exotic materials, as well as the ability to machine parts to within a tiny fraction of a human hair’s width, have brought the company much of its business by word of mouth, without having to dispatch a sales force, Thaler officials said.

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So, basically, Thaler Machine is a company looking for handouts. They get it from the State of Ohio taxpayers, and now they're trying to get it from Indiana. Not only that, but their customers are in defense and aerospace, which is ALSO paid for by taxpayers. Before we know it, most of the economy will be reliant on getting government-related jobs, making them useless in a truly free market.

KC
3:51 AM, 12/22/2009

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Instead of the state wasting money on casinos and new highway interchanges to support more shopping malls, they should be investing in companies like Thaler Machine to keep them from moving out of state! Hopefully they can sustain some manageable growth and bring a few more real jobs to the area!

Impressed
8:58 AM, 11/29/2009

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