ASHWAUBENON, Wis. — Paul Staeven never knows what he’ll handle on the electroless nickel plating line at Pioneer Metal Finishing near Green Bay.
“These are for yachts, racing yachts,” he said about the long metal tracks moving along the line.
Staeven has worked at Pioneer for forty years and has handled a wide variety of products.
“Anywhere from pistons to rolls for paper companies. NASCAR pistons we've run through the years,” he said. “I even remember years back we did pans for Martha Stewart, cookware.”
Pioneer takes parts and applies a variety of finishes and coatings to give them specific properties for their customers.
“We take our customer’s product that is a great product and we add a little something to it to make it better,” said Chad Winkka, the general manager in Green Bay. “We focus in on corrosion protection, wear resistance and various other attributes that can be attained through mental finishing and processes we control here.”
Pioneer is seeking people for jobs ranging from line operators and maintenance mechanics to chemists and shipping and receiving.
It has 10 locations in North America, including two in Wisconsin. The Chippewa Falls plant also has open positions.
“We service everything from basic consumer goods to all the way to medical, aerospace and defense and beyond,” Winkka said.
Rachel Hayes is pioneer’s chemist in Ashwaubenon.
“Without the chemistry being correct, our plating process doesn’t work,” she said. “We’re essentially in charge of making sure the concentrations are correct, the PHs are correct and that our dyes are where they’re suppose to be. Without any of that, our plant wouldn’t run efficiently, and our products wouldn’t come out they way they’re suppose to.”
Little about Hayes’ day is the same.
“You get that chance to fix something different everyday and it's not just rolling through the motions,” she said.
Staeven has seen Pioneer grow over the last four decades.
“When I first started working here, this company did mainly cookware, pots and pans and pizza pans,” he said. “You can’t rely on just cookware as a business. Then we expanded and looked at all the different things we could do and sent out a bunch of salesman looking for work everywhere. It’s crazy how the business took off and how it grew.”
Careers at Pioneer Metal Finishing can be found here.