Amidst the flood waters, the ensuing mud, and the almost unfathomable damage caused by Mother Nature, Mike Mullaney has seen the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
Sidelined by a freak storm from Hurricane Helene that reached Eastern Plating’s Newport, Tennessee, facility, the company is working to get back on its feet just six weeks after the devastation.
“It's nothing short of heroic what our team has done,” says Mullaney, president of Eastern Plating. “We're working to get our lines back up and to service our customers.”
“I was standing in a muddy parking lot, shaking hands and signing people up on unemployment,” Mullaney says.
25 Finishing Lines and 250,000 Square Feet
Flood waters from Hurricane Helene rain reached Newport, Tennessee. Courtesy WBIR.Founded in 1983, Eastern Plating has 25 plating and finishing lines in a 250,000-square-foot facility. The company specializes in finishes for the automotive, building and hardware, appliances, heavy equipment, military and aerospace, and electrical industries.
But what Eastern Plating had to endure after the unprecedented hurricane — and the herculean effort by his team to get itself back up and running — has been remarkable and yet also painful.
When the hurricane hit the area in late September and left many homes and businesses without power or water, many companies faced tough decisions on proceeding in the ensuing weeks and months while cleanups were needed.
“I put our team of maintenance and technical plating experts up against anyone. It's nothing short of miraculous.”
Making a Gut-Wrenching Decision with Employees
Mike MullaneyFor Eastern Plating, Mullaney knew they would be out of commission for some time to clean up and wait for the utilities to come back in. It was a hard decision he had to make in terms of keeping his staff intact.
“On the 2nd of October, I was standing in a muddy parking lot, shaking hands and signing people up on unemployment,” Mullaney says. “It was 119 of them, some of them who have been with us for three decades, several of them, four decades. All of them are diligent, hardworking people. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my business life.”
He asked about 25 employees to stay on and help in the ensuing cleanup after the storm left 30 inches of water inside the building. All agreed to help get Eastern Plating back up and running, and by mid-November, they were able to get six lines cleaned and ready to run again.
“I put our team of maintenance and technical plating experts up against anyone,” Mullaney says. “And it's nothing short of miraculous. Several of our suppliers have come, and they are shocked to see what the plant looks like before and after.”
Unprecedented Calamity for Region
Founded in 1983, Eastern Plating has 25 plating and finishing lines in a 250,000-square-foot facility. The sheer volume of the storm was unprecedented for the region, says Michael Mullaney III, Mike’s son and the Business Development Director for Eastern Plating. He came back to Tennessee to work at Eastern Plating after spending several years as an analyst in New York, and he knows the statistical anomalies that occurred with the storm and ensuing rainfall.
Comparing data from the National Geological Survey information, Michael found out just how phenomenally rare the chance of a storm like this to his Tennessee.
“Going back to 1901 on the flow rate, this was over 18 Sigma — 18 standard deviation event — and over 22 Sigma on the stage height of the Pigeon River,” he says. “It was so rare.”
But with the storm damage putting them on the sidelines, Mullaney knew that it would take a team to get things back to what could be considered ‘normal’ so that they could start delivering quality finished parts again.
From the start of the cleanup process, Mullaney says he noticed something unique in the 25 workers scrubbing the equipment and restoring it to working order.
“The situation was so dynamic and changing so fast, and there was so much uncertainty.”
“I could see we are so blessed that we have such diligent teams,” he says. “There were no complaints, no hand wringing; it was just getting to work and getting back at it to service our customers.”
Power and water were restored to the three buildings that make up the Eastern Plating campus about three weeks after the start of cleaning up the facility. Still, the crew got the facility back in order despite not having those essential elements.
“I've only been with Eastern two years now as I spent the previous four years on Wall Street working for a large company,” Michael Mullaney III says. “One of the things that I was amazed to see was that everybody — production, administration, office personnel — that next morning we showed up, everyone was already there, muck boots on, cleaning up.”
Suppliers Have Gone ‘Above and Beyond’
Michael Mullaney IIIMike Mullaney says Eastern Plating’s suppliers have also been helpful. Many have gone “above and beyond” to help them properly set up their equipment after the cleaning.
The 25 employees there were kept on quickly grew to over 40 when more finishing lines began coming to life, and Eastern Plating could welcome back more furloughed employees.
“Quite a few of our competitors reached out and, with the help of our chemical suppliers, have expressed willingness to assist us,” he says. “That’s with the understanding that we'll take the work back when we're up and running. There's a lot of that goodwill going on.”
Michael Mullaney says there wasn’t a blueprint for recovering from a natural disaster such as the enormous flooding, and managing the recovery and clean-up took some time.
“The situation was so dynamic and changing so fast, and there was so much uncertainty,” he says.
“This is our effort, and we know we have an uphill climb.”
Employees Fall into ‘Natural Areas of Expertise’
Some of Eastern Plating's customers include Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler Chrysler, John Deere, Nissan, Lockheed Martin, Honda, Subaru, Whirlpool, Trane, Mercedes Benz, and Bosch.Mike Mullaney says one thing he saw in all this was how many of Eastern Plating’s employees “fell into their natural areas of expertise” when the cleanup efforts began.
“I can't speak enough about our capable plant manager, maintenance managers, sales and production,” he says. “The first days, I may have gotten in the way more than I wanted to because I have such capable people.”
Mike and Michael have been on the road getting in front of customers as best they can to explain the status of their facility and update customers on when production will start again.
“We've had a lot of communications by email, but there's nothing that compares to looking somebody in the eye and telling them the situation,” Mullaney says. “It’s about asking for their cooperation and helping them to understand that the better we work together, the better we're all going to be.”
They realize the next few months will be difficult as they work continuously to bring more processes online, but after seeing where they started with the 30 inches of rain and mud, they are pleased to have a seventh and eighth plating line starting back up soon.
Mullaney says the past several months’ ordeal has only made him and his teams more determined and diligent about servicing their customers.
“This is our effort, and we know we have an uphill climb,” Mullaney says. “There is no doubt, but the effort is there. And if I were a customer, that's the type of plating service provider I would want to deal with. So we're trying to prove what we're made of here.”
Visit https://easternplating.com.
