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Today kicks off our Faces of Quaker Oats series as we share the stories and memories employees and community members have of a Danville plant that closed in June. Email Jennifer Bailey at jbailey@news-gazette.com to contribute.
DANVILLE — In July, 58-year-old Troy Pate would have spent 36 years at the Quaker Oats plant in Danville.
Having completed that many years of service to the company, Pate is receiving the equivalent of one year’s worth of pay and benefits as compensation for losing his job as a result of the plant's closure.
“I was one of the lucky ones,” Pate said.
He’s just one of the more than 500 employees terminated when The Quaker Oats Co. and PepsiCo announced in April that the Danville plant, in operation for 55 years, would close June 8.
Pate, who lives outside of Georgetown, has still been working with the union at Quaker Oats, having served as its financial secretary. The union is also shutting down.
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 347G represented the workers at the Danville facility, where they produced a variety of Quaker products including Aunt Jemima pancake mix, Cap'n Crunch cereals, and Quaker Oat Squares, Natural Granola and Chewy and Big Chewy granola bars.
Production had been paused — and, ultimately, permanently halted — following a recall in December due to salmonella contamination at the facility.
“After a detailed review, we determined that meeting our future manufacturing needs would require an extended closure for enhancements and modernization," Quaker Oats Co. officials said. "In order to continue the timely delivery of Quaker products trusted by consumers since 1877, we determined production would need to permanently shift to other facilities.”
Quaker Oats’ other U.S. plants include locations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Columbia, Mo.
As for the Danville employees left behind, they are trying to find their way forward.
“I’m getting ready to go to CDL (commercial driver’s license) class,” Pate said.
He will be undergoing semitrailer driver training at Danville Area Community College. He plans on doing local truck driving, such as for grain.
Pate has a farmer friend who drives grain year-round and had talked to him earlier about a retirement-type job.
Pate still can’t believe what’s happened in the last few months.
“It’s been a shocker,” he said of the plant closure. "It’s a little adjustment to get your life back."
June 7 was the last official day for employees.
“Everybody’s gone,” Pate said. “It’s just kind of sad.”
He said the union maintains a Facebook page where members communicate and keep up with one another.
“It’s like watching your family disperse,” Pate said.
Everyone is getting new jobs — “I’m happy for them,” he said — and going in different directions.
Pate said several former Quaker employees he knows are going to the Kraft Heinz plant in Champaign, while others are going to the Subaru car plant in Lafayette, Ind., and some maintenance employees are going to the Elanco, formerly Eli Lilly, plant in Indiana.
Pate said quite a few also are seeing bigger shifts in their careers. They will be taking classes for nursing, computer programming, CDL, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and other pursuits.
He said DACC was looking to adjust its HVAC course to get more students, and Parkland College also has courses.
Pate said he doesn’t know what will happen with the closed Danville plant.
“It’s up for sale,” he said, adding that the company likely will tear it down if it’s not sold.
Just as employees were left wondering what their futures hold, “we don’t know,” he said of the shuttered plant site’s future.
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