Innovairre ? helping those who need it and feeling good about it

By Brooks Taylor, Mt. Pleasant News

Bill Tallent has a promise for prospective employees.

?If you want to be on the leading edge of technology, this is the place to be,? said Tallent, Innovairre senior vice president. The company?s slogan ? ?Innovate for Good? ? fits into the company?s drive to be the best at what it does.

Tallent is the manager of the Mt. Pleasant campus and likes to use that term instead of plant. As campus manager, he oversees 542 employees at the company?s two buildings.

Both buildings are located within a block of each other on North Iris Street and formerly housed Alaniz and MetroGroup. Innovairre purchased Alaniz earlier this decade and then acquired MetroGroup. After being known for a short time as Alaniz-MetroGroup, the company started using the handle Innovairre three years ago.

Tallent has been the campus manager in Mt. Pleasant for five years, or shortly after Innovairre purchased the two existing companies in 2011.

Mt. Pleasant, Tallent said, is Innovairre?s largest domestic manufacturing site. The international company, headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J., also has manufacturing campuses in Lynchburg Va., Louisville, Ken., and on China?s mainland.

Innovairre wants a growth spurt quickly with Tallent kiddingly telling visitors that if they know of any skilled production workers to send them into his office.

?We need 100 more employees very quickly,? he said. ?We are aggressively pursuing employees. If 100 qualified people walked up to the door tomorrow, we would hire them.?

The company, which specializes in direct mail for over 500 non-profit charities, operates its production lines 24/7, the company vice president said, only closing the doors for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas and Independence Day.

While Tallent gushes about Mt. Pleasant and the support the company receives from the community, he admits that finding skilled workers is a challenge. ?There is low employment here, this is a small community and we are looking for people with skills and experience.

?Every job is for a career technical employee,? Tallent continued. ?Hopefully, we can develop your skills and improve your life. If you are looking for careers, we have careers.?

Company officials said the majority of their employees are from Henry County. However, Innovairre has employees who drive from Burlington, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa City, Fairfield, Washington and Ottumwa to name a few out-of-county locations.

A ribbon cutting/open house event was hosted just over a week ago when Innovairre announced its plans to add 100 jobs. The event also celebrated $15 million spent in improvements to the facility in the past several years. Accounting for a good chunk of that $15M was the addition of three state-of-the-art Xerox digital printing presses. The first CiPress arrived in 2011 and the third and final one earlier this year. The machines range in price from $1M to $2.7M. ?We are developing this facility to be the best facility anywhere.?

One of the world?s leading companies of producing direct-mail and creative services to some of the largest charities, Innovairre, Tallent said, connects people. ?We serve over 500 charities here and every charity makes the world a better place. As far as fund-raisers are concerned, we are second to none in developing strategies for charities.?

?Innovairre is all about innovation,? Candice Becker, Innovairre?s senior human resources manager, adds. ?We believe that innovation was badly needed in the non-profit community. Combining data, creativity and strategy with advanced digital printing leads to building a better and deeper bond between the non-profits and their donors. We want to help non-profits meet their fund-raising goals and meet their mission of servicing and helping others.?

Some of the major charities employing the company are the March of Dimes, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Feed the Children, American Lung Association, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centers, National Law Enforcement Organization, Prison Fellowship, Make-A-Wish, Boys Town, United Services Organizations and the Alliance Defining Freedom.

In turn, charity work is important to Innovairre. Each worker who requests it is given two days of paid leave per year to work for a charity. The company also supports local charities such as Relay for Life, The Fellowship Cup, Southeast Iowa Community Action and Habitat for Humanity.

He said the company is happy to be in Mt. Pleasant. ?We believe in Mt. Pleasant and that is why we are here. This is a wonderful place to be in business. We have a solid group of employees here. We just need more of them. We are trying to make this place a career destination. The people we have in higher-level jobs stay with us. We have a good, dedicated workforce.?

Innovairre?s two buildings measure nearly 400,000 square feet, the largest being the south building, which is 322,000 square feet.

As Tallent looks to the future, a good feeling envelops him. ?We touch a lot of lives. One of our slogans is that in no other place can you both work and change lives for the better.?