GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Georgia-Pacific, one of Green Bay’s largest employers, officially unveiled its latest expansion to its more than 100-year-old mill on Broadway on Tuesday.
Inside the new facility — paper towel, a household essential, is being prepared to be stocked on store shelves.
Before the state-of-the-art expansion, production was a little different.
“Historically, here in Green Bay, we have always made products that have really supported other businesses, right? So, when you think of restaurants and hotels, a lot of those products that you see and use are Georgia Pacific. What this investment is is it makes retail products,” said Dean Wesolowski, who led the expansion project.
“You all brought it here because of the work attitude, the culture, the experience, the expertise,” said Georgia-Pacific President & CEO, Christian Fischer.
The new 600,000 square foot facility houses its new paper machine, which features more automation to increase safety and productivity.
That doesn’t mean it’s taking away jobs.
Rather, the expansion has allowed for additional job growth.
“There’s very few manual touches. Now, we need a lot of people, but it’s a lot of technology and it’s a different skillset to run the equipment today,” said Wesolowski.
Georgia-Pacific says this project has allowed them to add more than 100 jobs.
While some positions have been filled, G-P is still looking to hire.
“Technicians that’ll operate our equipment, not only the paper machine, but our converting assets that actually make the product. We’re hiring engineers, we’re hiring maintenance folks, supervisors,” added Wesolowski.
Leaders first broke ground on the project in July of 2022.
In total, the work cost more than $550 million.
Before the project, the Broadway Mill hadn’t opened a new paper machine in more than 30 years.
The expansion is allowing Georgia Pacific to address an increased demand for paper towel products.
“You can see the care that the people put in the facility and all the things that they do, the choices that they’ve made to make sure that not only is the facility being brought up, but it’s brought up in a way that we are able to consistently monitor great quality products coming off the line,” said Amanda Earley, Brand Director for Brawny Paper Towels.
Some operations inside the facility began as early as April, while the majority of production started in June.
