Industry Alive in Albion

Albion's largest employer, Champion Laboratories, employs more people in it's Albion plants than Albion has residents.

The history of Champion Laboratories connects with my family's auto industry background. Champion Labs was formed soon after I was born in the mid 50's.

At one time, my entire family worked in the auto industry in Anderson. Mostly with Delco Remy Division of GM. Even Uncle Warren used to work for GM, and then ran a service station for many years. My maternal grandfather and mom's brother also worked for Delco. Now Delco and GM in Anderson is kaput.

Champion Laboratories was started in West Salem, Illinois in 1955 and expanded to Albion soon after.

Here are some milestones in company history that I found interesting:

The company was once owned by STP owner Andy Granatelli. It is currently owned by The Carlyle Group.

Race car driver Jackie Stewart was once a spokesman for the company.

Champion opened a new plant in South Carolina and then a 200,000 sq. foot plant in Mexico.

But the Albion area plants remained open. The Mexico plant was recently closed, and the jobs were moved to an expanded Albion operation.

And sure enough, Champion Labs is a GM supplier... and even won a "Supplier of the Year" award from GM. GM is not the only customer, however.

The workers at Champion are not unionized. Salaries of workers appear to be a little more than half of that of former GM workers in Anderson, but comparable to the new Nestle and GM pay rates.

And the new president of the company is named Camilla.

Here's a link to Champion Labs history. Check out the chronology in the box on the page.

The pictures were taken from the Champion Labs office parking lot. The lake looks like a great fishing and picnic spot, and the water and rocks are beautiful, but it's not Killbuck Park.