Tim Sanders loading fresh
pallets of Rympblecloth with
a forklift.
and give them strength. The fabrics are
then used for bookbinding.
The only product the company
manufactures from scratch is its non-woven
cotton balls, which it sells to Big Lots and
Rose’s discount stores throughout the
country and local medical facilities. In the
past, AFF sold to other huge companies
like Target and Walmart.
Besides cotton balls, AFF is the
industry’s largest manufacturer of light to
medium woven industrial fabrics utilized
by the aerospace, automotive and filtration
industries. Many of the products are AFF
trademark brands such as Rympblecloth,
a purified wiping cloth used to collect
and trap dirt particles. AFF also sells
cotton pads and cotton swabs under the
trademarked brand Sofetts.
“We have a very unique and niche
market that we sell to,” said AFF President
Paul Robichaud.
The market, which is largely comprised
of aerospace companies, has kept AFF
in business while so many other
textile mills have had to close over the
last several decades.
“What we do is not glamorous, but the
people that we sell to are,” Robichaud said.
The aerospace companies include
Boeing, NASA, Lockheed Martin,
Northrup Grumman, SpaceX and
General Electric.
Robichaud said the company sells
a diverse array of products from
woven materials to polyester materials
to lint materials.
Though the wiping products AFF
produces are more expensive than similar
products found at places like Home Depot
or Lowe’s, “our products are prepared in
such a way that we know we removed and
extracted all of the contaminants out of
the fabric that you can’t see with the naked
eye,” Robichaud said.
Phillips said selling non-woven cotton
products to consumers can be tough
because the only other American company
besides AFF is U.S. Cotton. He said the
business is now competing with companies
in India and China.
At its heyday in the early 2000s, the
Albemarle location had between 350 to
400 employees. It now has around 60,
Phillips said.
Textiles are a much more modernized
industry now, Phillips said. Though AFF
doesn’t manufacture as many items as it
used to, it has managed to survive partly
because businesses which purchase its
materials, like Boeing, are thriving.
Phillips recalls the last time he went into
Walmart and looked at its cotton balls and
cosmetic pads, he noticed they were made
in India, Mexico and China.
Occasionally, when he’s not busy,
Phillips said he can sense the history of the
facility and all of the people throughout
the generations that worked there.
“Just think of all that’s gone on here, all
the people that lived a good life here and
had a good time here,” Phillips said.
Robichaud recalls sitting in his office
in June of 1998 during his first month
as plant manager with the company. He
looked out his window and watched as
Seng Hang prepping a roll of
textile during production.
Wiscasset Mills, which was right down the
street, imploded.
“I’ve watched a lot of textiles leave the
area,” he said.
Phillips takes pride in the fact that AFF is
still around and doing well.
“You feel kind of honored to be one of
the last ones to uphold the legacy of textiles
in Stanly County,” he said.
While the textile industry’s influence in
the county has largely disappeared, “at least
we’re still here and we’re still contributing,”
Phillips said.
Bobby Lowder laying fibrous
material made on the
production line.
Made in Stanly Magazine | 2020
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