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Burke to speak at LCCC commencement

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Times Leader publisher: Thank you, Wilkes-Barre, for a memorable first year

<p>WYOMING &#8212; As blue-collar Americans and elected officials have lamented the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs over the past few decades, a century-old manufacturer based in Luzerne County has been expanding in the United States, and doing so with a strong commitment to its employees.</p><p>The Diamond Manufacturing Co. was founded in Wyoming in 1915 by John Newton Thomas to create sizing screens used in the coal industry to strain out silt and dust and separate mined pieces of coal according to size. Today, Diamond manufactures perforated metal for a wide range of industries &#8212; from appliance and automotive to electronics and agriculture.</p><p>Used mostly as screens, filters, shields and guards, perforated metals can control the passage of air, liquid, light, solids, heat, electromagnetic waves and sound waves. They can be found in anything from stereo speaker covers to airplane engine silencers.</p><p>&#8220;This is kind of where we started,&#8221; said company President David Simpson as he led a tour of the 110,000-square-foot manufacturing plant on West Eighth Street. &#8220;This is one of six plants &#8212; the original headquarters.&#8221;</p><p>The tour began from a reception area, where a sign above a table noted the company&#8217;s 100-year anniversary in 2015. On the front of the table was the headlight and grill assembly of a Ford Mustang &#8212; the grill was manufactured by Diamond. Resting on the tabletop was a framed photo of the late Charles D. Flack Jr., the company&#8217;s CEO until his death in 2011.</p><p>Charles Jr., or &#8220;Rusty,&#8221; as everyone knew him, and his brother, Harold, were the combined face of the company for more than three decades until Reliance Steel &amp; Aluminum acquired Diamond in 2010.</p><p>Diamond, now a subsidiary of Reliance, had been in the family for four generations.</p><p>The company grew by adding plants in Indiana and North Carolina, and the Texas facility opened during the Reliance acquisition. Five years ago, Reliance acquired McKey Inc., a perforated metal company with plants in Wisconsin and Tennessee.</p><p>Not only has the company grown, it&#8217;s done so while treating employees well.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll have been here 31 years,&#8221; Simpson said. &#8220;But there are a lot of people who have been here even longer than I have &#8212; the reason being that the Flack family who owned the business, they&#8217;re just great people to work for. And, fortunately, the company that owns us today &#8212; same thing.&#8221;</p><p>Tony Ciciani, who runs the maintenance department, has been with Diamond for 21 years.</p><p>&#8220;They treat you well here; they treat you like family,&#8221; said Ciciani, 54, of Dallas.</p><p>Next door to the manufacturing plant &#8212; in the former Wyoming Shovel Works plant that Diamond bought 15 years ago &#8212; is Diamond&#8217;s fabrication facility. Chuck Dixon has run that plant since it opened 10 years ago.</p><p>An industry veteran who worked at companies from Kingston to Dunmore, Dixon, 52, of Edwardsville, said working at Diamond &#8220;is so much better. &#8230; I wish I was working at Diamond 30 years ago because they do know how to treat people here.&#8221;</p><p>Dixon led guests to see the facility&#8217;s newest piece of equipment &#8212; a fiber optic laser.</p><p>Laser operator Brian O&#8217;Kane explained it takes a mechanical fabricating press about 25 minutes to cut 1,200 holes in a piece of metal. O&#8217;Kane, 40, of Larksville, said the new laser can cut those 1,200 holes in about 40 seconds.</p><p>The fabrication aspect of the business &#8212; adding value to perforated metal with services such as painting, rolling, texturing and polishing the metal &#8212; really took off a few years ago, Simpson said. &#8220;Probably 40 percent of our business is just fabrication.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s up from about 10 percent just a few years ago, he said.</p><p>&#8220;Other than acquiring McKey and adding the Texas facility, probably our biggest expansion has been into the fabrication, right here,&#8221; Simpson said. &#8220;And adding that fabrication here (in Wyoming), it just shows that we&#8217;re here, and we&#8217;re here to stay.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">David Simpson, president and CEO of Diamond Manufacturing Co., points out the business is now 102 years old with mulitple locations throughout the country, including the home base in Wyoming. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>David Simpson, president and CEO of Diamond Manufacturing Co., points out the business is now 102 years old with mulitple locations throughout the country, including the home base in Wyoming. </caption0><photoCredit0>Tony Callaio | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Employee Mike Hiedcavage explains the perforation process for metal sheets of various thicknesses manufactured at Diamond. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_2-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Employee Mike Hiedcavage explains the perforation process for metal sheets of various thicknesses manufactured at Diamond. </caption1><photoCredit1>Tony Callaio | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_4-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">John Sicilia, of Dallas, a nine-year employee at Diamond, marries two manufactured metal pieces for a gas water heater. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_4-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>John Sicilia, of Dallas, a nine-year employee at Diamond, marries two manufactured metal pieces for a gas water heater. </caption2><photoCredit2>Tony Callaio | For Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_3-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Paul Rosengrant, of Swoyersville, lines up a template into one of the many cutting machines at Diamond Manufacturing. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Diamond_Mfg_3-1.jpg</photo3><caption3>Paul Rosengrant, of Swoyersville, lines up a template into one of the many cutting machines at Diamond Manufacturing. </caption3><photoCredit3>Tony Callaio | For Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Steve Mocarsky</p><p>smocarsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>DIAMOND MANUFACTURING CO.</strong></p><p><strong>&#8226; What: </strong>Luzerne County-based business that produces perforated metal that can be used as screens, filters, shields and guards. Among the products that contain perforated metal: automotive grills, microwave ovens.</p><p><strong><strong>&#8226; </strong>Year opened: </strong>1915</p><p><strong><strong>&#8226; </strong>Address</strong>: 243 W. 8th St., Wyoming</p><p><strong><strong>&#8226; </strong>Phone</strong>: 800-233-9601</p><p><strong><strong>&#8226; </strong>Website:</strong> <a href="http://www.diamondman.com" target="_blank">www.diamondman.com</a></p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Steve Mocarsky at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @TLSteveMocarsky.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

For Luzerne County-based company, it’s Made in America