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Westmoreland County-based Standard Envelope got its start selling office supplies made in Dubai, but soon it will make its own products at a factory in South Greensburg.
“We are going to bring the manufacturing over here, and with that will come jobs,” said Cameron Daidi, operations manager.
The company plans to expand from six employees to 75 as it moves its operations from Unity to the 68,653-square-foot space in South Greensburg Commons it leases from the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp.
That's still a few months off, according to company President Jim Herbert. The company isn't accepting job applications yet, instead focusing on transforming a large, empty warehouse into a full-fledged factory.
If all goes according to plan, the company will start cranking out envelopes by the thousands in April, Herbert said.
Since its founding in 2014, the company has not manufactured envelopes, instead buying them from Dubai, then selling and distributing them wholesale in the U.S., Herbert said. Customers buy anywhere from 1,000 to 3 million envelopes at a time.
“We've seen tremendous growth in the last two years, and it just makes sense to manufacture in the U.S. instead of overseas,” he said.
Southwestern Pennsylvania is ideal for the operation, he said. Most of the country's population can be reached within a two-day drive from South Greensburg.
South Greensburg Council President Clentin Martin said he hasn't heard much about Standard Envelope, so he's waiting to see what impact the company has on the borough of about 2,000 residents.
“It could mean employment coming in for some of our residents; I don't know how many,” he said.
The building known as South Greensburg Commons used to be a PPG auto glass works, but the plant closed in the 1990s and the county development corporation took over the property, said Executive Director Jason Rigone.
The building has two other tenants: AssetGenie and Forest Hills Transfer and Storage. Phillips Respironics used to have a warehouse in the space where the envelope factory will be but has moved to the Westmoreland Distribution Park North in East Huntingdon, Rigone said.
The space wasn't vacant for long, and a factory likely will bring many more jobs to the area than the warehouse, Rigone said.
Any time a job-creating company moves into the county, it's a victory for the development corporation, Rigone said.
“It's certainly something that we're very proud of and something that we're promoting every day,” he said.
Jacob Tierney is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6646 or jtierney@tribweb.com.
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