ST. CLOUD - Geringhoff announced their intentions of starting a production facility in St. Cloud last fall with a lot of hype and fanfare.  It's about six months later, and officials say everything is going well and they continue to be on track toward full production.

Operations Manager Jim Sattler says they have started to furnish the building, and are in the process of building their corn head prototypes.  He says other local businesses are benefitting, because they're using local suppliers.

About 80 percent of their suppliers will be from the U.S.  Sattler says they'll have just a skeleton crew at least through the fall.  They plan to hire about 100 people within about a year.

Director of Manufacturing Herman Braun says there have been a few minor hiccups, but they're still on schedule.  He says they've started to make some prototypes.  And their pilot series is the next step.

Braun says the pilot series will be tested later this year in the southern U.S. and Mexico.

The corn heads they'll be making here are the same ones they're making already in Germany.  He says Geringhoff corn heads have been sold in the U.S. for about eight years already.  He says they decided to open a North American production facility to have a better presence here.

Geringhoff was founded in Ahlen Germany in 1880.

Sattler is new to the company, but not to the building.  He worked with the former Donlin Company for 26 years.

Anyone interested in a job with Geringhoff is encouraged to go through their website.

You can hear our full interview with Geringhoff coming-up at 12:45 p.m. today (Monday) on the "News  Noon".

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