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February of 2020 held a lot of promise for Mike Teso. He and Kurt
Clearwaters had just finalized a sales agreement for Clearwaters’
manufacturing company, Liberty Trailers. Originally started in ‘98,
Liberty Trailers has built a strong name for itself through quality
and reputation, even if it had only relied on word-of-mouth
advertising. With Clearwaters agreeing to remain with Liberty
Trailers, Teso was eager to lead the company to new heights.
Teso, like so many others, could not have predicted what happened
next. Though he and Clearwaters shared a common vision,
a virus was captivating the world. It had the potential to bring
Teso’s plans to a screeching halt.
“Here I am - excited to become a part of the team and facilitate
big changes,” Teso remembered. “Then, boom! COVID-19 hits.”
Like dominos falling, industrial areas all over started to slow.
Eventually, local, then state, governments issued “Shelter in
Place” ordinances that prevented businesses from operating unless
deemed essential.
For Teso, that presented a silver lining. He knew, going into his
purchase, that his new plant would need more space and that
an expansion was in order. Moving with the virus rather than
combating it, Teso gained a new perspective. The governmentmandated
closures and restrictions freed up the time needed
to renovate the plant and add 10,000 square feet of production
space.
When life handed him lemons, Teso made lemonade.
“We used this opportunity to complete the expansion and then
move into revamping our production process, including a complete
overhaul of our monorail systems for better production
flow. Our team did an incredible job in a very short amount of
time” shared Teso. “From a lean integration perspective, we were
fortunate to have this downtime. Tackling many of these in-house
initiatives will pay off for us.”
Due to certain customers, the company is considered essential
in the state of Indiana, Teso has taken every precaution to ensure
his employees are safe. He explained that there are sanitation
zones throughout the plant and that the workforce maintains safe
distances from one another.
Though he understands that 2020’s data will be skewed, Teso isn’t
letting the virus push him off course.
“This year, sales industrywide will be compressed. However, Liberty
has never truly run at 100% capacity. We’re adding a second
powder-coat booth and oven this year. The preliminary analysis
shows a throughput increase 75%,” Teso said. “Based on the vol-
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