As I close in on 28 years with Church Wyble in this new year of 2011, I thought you might like to hear about another company that understands loyalty. Wilson, the sports gear manufacturing company, is responsible for producing all official NFL gameday footballs. However, what’s even more interesting is that it is one plant in Ada, Ohio that does all the hard work. You can watch a step-by-step video of how the plant workers construct a football from start to finish below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kZP4dRe3w&feature=player_embeddedWhat is even more amazing than the fact that only one plant in Ohio produces all the footballs for the NFL, is that almost all of the employees there have at least 28 years. In fact, some have over 40.
The partnership between the Wilson company and the NFL goes way back to 1941. That is the year when Wilson first started producing the “official football” for the NFL. In 1955, Wilson opened the Ada, OH plant to ensure that Wilson footballs would always be of the highest quality and made in America. Jobs at the plant include splitter, cutter, or turners, but every worker at the plant is dedicated to the highest quality football in the game. Overall, the Wilson football factory produces more than 700,000 footballs annually and stands as the only dedicated football factory in the world. In addition, the factory employees 150 workers, many of them second or third generation employees.
