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Electrolux makes donation to AU College of Engineering

Ross Norton //April 21, 2021//

Electrolux makes donation to AU College of Engineering

Ross Norton //April 21, 2021//

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Electrolux will donate $300,000 to Anderson University to support the school’s new College of Engineering.

The company made the announcement Tuesday while showing off its newly expanded refrigeration factory to Gov. Henry McMaster.

Gov. Henry McMaster tours the Anderson Electrolux factory with Nolan Pike, head of Electrolux North America. (Photo/Ross Norton)“Our expansion is advancing our employees’ manufacturing skills, and we want to be the cornerstone of support as the university develops their new engineering program,” Nolan Pike, head of Electrolux North America, said in a news release.

Electrolux will give Anderson University $100,000 a year for the next three years.

In several announcements made since 2017, Electrolux said it was closing one of two Anderson plants to create one highly efficient plant. The company also closed a Minnesota factory to move freezer production to Anderson.

Pike said Tuesday the second plant in Anderson will be fully integrated into is upgraded facility by the end of the year. The site produces refrigerators and freezers.

The Anderson plant is one of the Sweden-based company’s most efficient and automated factories anywhere in the world and produces more units than any other, according to earlier statements by company officials. At full capacity, it can produce 3 million units annually.

As a steady line of Frigidaire refrigerators moved behind him on Tuesday, McMaster said the plant is a good example of today’s factory jobs in South Carolina, making the company’s gift to an engineering program all the more appropriate.

“Young people today want to work where they can use their hands and their heads,” he said.

The university announced the engineering program last year and will have a pilot class this fall, followed by full enrollment in 2022, according to Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, dean of the college.

Pike said the relationship between Electrolux and Anderson University has been fruitful already in the 33 years the company has been part of the Anderson community, and the school consulted with Electrolux about the skills needed when developing the engineering program.

“We wanted to develop an academic program that prepares students for the workforce and so it makes sense to talk to industry about what they need,” Guiseppi-Eli said, adding that a program that helps industry inspires the industry to support education.

Electrolux invested $250 million to expand and modernize the factory. That kind of high-tech work environment calls for a steady supply of educated and highly trained employees, Pike said.

“We are thrilled that Gov. McMaster got to see the great work our incredible team is doing here,” Pike said in the news release. “We are deeply committed to our employees and our community and we couldn’t be prouder to be part of Anderson.”

Electrolux, whose brands include AEG and Frigidaire, sells approximately 60 million household products in approximately 120 markets every year, the news release said. In 2020 Electrolux had sales of $14 billion and employed 48,000 people around the world. About 2,000 people work at the Anderson plant, which last year announced plans in March to hire 500, followed by an additional announcement in June to hire another 800 by the end of 2020.

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