PORT ANGELES — McKinley Paper Co. is seeking in-person job applicants July 11 in anticipation of reopening its shuttered Ediz Hook paper mill by December and expanding its reach through the recent acquisition of a U.S. packaging company.
The New Mexico-based American subsidiary of Mexican-owned Bio-Pappel wants to fill 33 positions, an organizer of what’s billed as a “hiring event” said Thursday.
Patrice Varela-Daylo, a business services specialist with WorkSource of Clallam and Jefferson counties, said Thursday the company wants to immediately fill 15 of the positions. Applicants will not be hired at the event, she said.
Applicants will go through a training period, General Manager Edward Bortz said Thursday in an interview.
Applications must be filled out and submitted in person between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday, July 11 at the Armory Square Professional Center, 228 W. First St., in Port Angeles.
Applicants should bring a resume and “be dressed appropriately,” Varela-Daylo said.
Applicants with WorkSource accounts available by going to www.worksourcewa.com will be interviewed faster than other applicants, she said.
Anyone who cannot get off work and who wants to apply should call Varela-Daylo at 360-457-2128.
“This is a big event, and I know everyone is really excited about it,” Varela-Daylo said. “We’ve had a number of inquiries about it already.”
WorkSource and the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring the event.
Openings are available for 10 multi-craft mechanics, three electrical instrumentation mechanics, a store room clerk and a buyer.
“Many other positions will be advertised in the coming weeks and months, so applications from people with paper manufacturing, general manufacturing, construction, farming, fishing, logging, machinery and similar backgrounds and experience are encouraged,” a press release said.
“We are looking to hire ‘A’ employees who are up to the challenge, in the unique opportunity of a startup, to participate [in] and create a positive and secure environment,” Bortz said in the release.
Hourly employees will be paid under a new union contract McKinley signed this month with the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers Local 155, Bortz said in the interview.
Union President Greg Pallesen did not return calls for comment Thursday afternoon on wage ranges.
McKinley plans to reopen the plant, purchased from Nippon Paper Industries USA in April 2017, by the end of this year, Bortz reconfirmed Thursday.
“That’s not a commitment, that’s the plan,” Bortz said.
The company has been retooling the plant with plans to run two paper machines to manufacture containerboard, which also is produced by Port Townsend Paper Co., and to manufacture packaging-grade brown paper, using 100 percent recycled cardboard.
The city of Port Angeles issued McKinley a shoreline permit in April to install $600,000 in new equipment.
McKinley will hire about 120 workers when fully operational, according to the permit application.
Bio-Pappel, through McKinley, purchased Pennsylvania-based US Corrugated Inc., a corrugated packaging manufacturer, the companies recently announced.
Bio-Pappel announced it had purchased 55 percent of the company, according Fastmarkets RISI, a forest-products market-analysis company that printed a press release on the purchase Monday with a Mexico City dateline.
In U.S. Corrugated’s undated announcement, the company said the purchase created “a fully integrated paper and packaging company with a vertically aligned network of paper mills, box plants, sheet plants and an efficient distribution network in the United State and the maquiladora region in Mexico.”
Bio-Pappel said the acquisition will allow Bio-Pappel to double its operations in the U.S., according to the pulp and paper industry news website www.nipimpressions.com.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
