WoodMarc is one of the town’s largest employers
By WILLIAM RYBERG
WoodMarc Enterprises, a manufacturer of residential bedroom furniture, announced Friday that it is closing its manufacturing facility in Winterset, eliminating most of its 114-person workforce.
WoodMarc is one of the largest employers in the town of 5,000, about 30 miles southwest of Des Moines.
“We’re going to weather through this,” Winterset Mayor James Olson said. “It’s a blow to us.”
WoodMarc said in a statement that it will remain in business as a furniture importer and will continue with its product lines that are currently made in China.
Chief Executive Jerry Ruff said the manufacturing portion of the business has been losing money, and the company was not effectively competing against similar imported products.
“I feel very bad,” Ruff said.
The company’s employees have worked hard, “but just got caught in the middle of a very difficult competition situation caused by cheaper production off shore,” he said.
The U.S. furniture manufacturing industry has been hurt by lower-priced imports, primarily from China and other parts of Asia, said Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of the American Home Furnishings Alliance.
“There’s no question that our domestic manufacturers have been challenged with products that are coming in from overseas,” she said.
A significant number of furniture factories operated by well-known, brand-name companies have closed during the past five years, she said.
St. Louis-based Furniture Brands International, parent company of Thomasville Furniture, and Hooker Furniture both recently announced closings to reduce cost by sending production overseas.
The Winterset factory once employed about 200, but the number has gradually dropped during the past two years.
In Iowa, the number of business locations described as manufacturers of household and institutional furniture fell from 95 in 2000 to 72 in 2013, according to Iowa Workforce Development. Employment fell from 2,900 to 1,900 during the same period.
The average wage in the industry in Iowa in 2013 was $33,297. Ruff declined to disclose WoodMarc wages.
Olson said he hopes the Winterset area economy will be able to absorb the WoodMarc workers. “Our biggest resource we have here is our people,” he said.
Winterset, the birthplace of movie legend John Wayne, has a lot going for it, Olson said.
Among the pluses mentioned by Olson: Plans for a new John Wayne museum, Madison County’s popular annual covered bridges festival and a vibrant downtown.
Ruff said most of WoodMarc’s 114 Winterset employees will be dismissed when current production schedules are completed, estimated to be at the end of July.
Some workers will stay on in the office and warehouse after WoodMarc shifts to a strictly import operation, Ruff said.
He couldn’t estimate the number, but said about 15 work in those areas now.
WoodMarc’s 265,000-square-foot building has been put up for sale.
The import operation will remain in the building until it’s sold, but WoodMarc will then look for a new location, Ruff said. He expects the company to remain in central Iowa.
WoodMarc was created in Des Moines by the Merschman family in 1990 to produce furniture for the family’s Homemakers furniture stores.
The plant was moved to Winterset in 1992, and the client base was expanded.
Omaha-based Nebraska Furniture Mart bought the Homemakers operations in 2000, and sold WoodMarc to Sentinel Acquisitions, an investment group registered in Illinois, in 2012.
Reporter William Ryberg can be reached at (515) 284-8104 or bryberg@dmreg.com
