APPLETON, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) — It’s hard to miss the large buildings and logo of Great Northern Corp. on a drive up U.S. 41 between Oshkosh and Appleton.

The Appleton-based business has built a nearly 60-year history producing corrugated packing — from brown cardboard boxes to beer cases.

It also continues to seek talent.

“All of our locations are looking for production, and that’s throughout the state of Wisconsin,” said Lauren Basler, the company’s HR recruiter. “More specifically for the Fox Valley, we’re looking for production employees with a starting rate anywhere from $17 dollars an hour to up to $30 an hour, it just depends on the skill set for those positions.”

Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites have found themselves without jobs this year. Many have have gone back to work, other’s have not. The state’s unemployment rate was a little north of 8 percent in June — down from more than 13 percent in May.

Despite those grim numbers, jobs are available.

Great Northern is seeking positions ranging from electro-mechanical maintenance technicians in Appleton to an offset press assistant in Oshkosh. It has other available positions at those locations as well as in Racine, Chippewa falls and facilities nationwide.

The company’s cornerstone product is corrugated packing — brown cardboard boxes. It also specializes in retail displays, protective laminations for packaging,  digital printing and a line of niche products including laminated folding cartons.

Great Northern has about 1,200 employees nationwide — including 400 in the Fox Valley.

Joe Bennett, a maintenance technician  in Oshkosh who has been with the company for three years,  said the people he works with are among the perks of the job.

So is the work.

“The nice thing about my job is it’s never the same any two days,” Bennett said. “One day I’ll be working on one thing, another day I’ll be working on something different. It’s not the same thing day in and day out. Which is what I really enjoy, it keeps it interesting and kinda keeps you on your toes and keeps you thinking.”

His division focuses on printed, folding and more specialized types of packaging.

“We’ve done some stuff for golfball packaging and actually little boxes for baby chickens, believe it or not,” Bennett said.

Basler said they company is proud of the culture it’s built over the past six decades..

“At our corporate location, our longest standing employee is at 40-plus years and our average is about 15 to 20,” she said. “That says a lot about a company that people want to come here, work for us and stay until they retire.”

More information about Great Northern Corp. and and available jobs can be found here.