ROTTERDAM — A downstate metal fabricator will move its production shop from New Lebanon to Rotterdam, officials announced this past week.
RISA Management Corp. hopes to gain better access to talent, transportation and new business opportunities with the move, said D. Savi Prashad, the company’s founder, president and CEO.
The move will bring 20 workers to Rotterdam Corporate Park, and Prashad said she hopes to add additional employees to fulfill new contracts in the upstate region.
Currently, the Queens-based company has a client base heavily focused on the New York Metropolitan Area, including the Metropolitan Transit Authority, Long Island Rail Road and Port Authority.
The move will take RISA’s production shop from a rural stretch of Route 20 near the Massachusetts border to a large industrial park with immediate access to two interstate highways.
It will also cut the commute for some people who work at RISA.
“We do have quite a few employees in Schenectady,” Prashad said, some of whom moved upstate from Queens to work for RISA.
The move will be assisted by a $50,000 relocation grant from the Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority. Its chairman, Ray Gillen, said RISA is good match for Schenectady County, in part because of the presence of Modern Welding School in Schenectady.
“We’ve always had good welding and good metalworking skills in this area,” Gillen said. “[RISA does] these very complicated welds and some really nice detail work.”
RISA will occupy 21,500 square feet in Rotterdam Corporate Park, a Galesi Group property that at nearly 4 million square feet of space is the region’s largest industrial park.
RISA is a state-certified minority- and woman-owned business enterprise founded in 1994. Prashad said earning repeat business from organizations with stringent requirements such as the MTA makes her optimistic RISA will be able to secure new business upstate.
“We expect to expand our workforce here,” Prashad said.
Categories: -News-, Business, Schenectady County
