A company with a long history in the Finger Lakes region is going to be moving much of its operation and jobs out of the area later this year.
Crosman Corp. will likely lay off many of its approximately 140-member workforce in East Bloomfield by the end of the year.
That’s after the company, which has a century-old history and has been in Ontario County since the early 1970s, announced in April that its air gun division was being sold to Daisy Manufacturing, an Arkansas-based company that makes similar products.
“There’s simply just 100% duplicity of business operations,” said Joe Brown, vice president of marketing and product development at Crosman. “So realizing the synergies involved with the acquisition just creates this difficult decision.”
Brown said he will also lose his job as part of the changes at Crosman.
He said Crosman is talking about trying to have some sort of manufacturing operation remaining in the region: “They are committed to maintaining a manufacturing presence here in the local area, and exploring options for that right now.”
But it will still mean an economic hit locally, according to East Bloomfield Supervisor Fred Wille. He noted that Crosman was quite busy during the pandemic.
“Ran two shifts for over a year, and their corporation did very well when the rest of the country was on an economic setback or downturn, so this came as a surprise to us that this corporation was leaving,” Wille said.
The Crosman facility is just outside the village of Bloomfield, and its mayor, Mark Falsone, said it will hurt the village’s economy as well.
“A lot of the workers would come into the village and have lunch, our restaurants and pizza shop and things of that nature,” Falsone said. “So we are going to take an economic hit when it comes to that. And some people who live in the village and the town work at Crosman, so it's going to be a double hit for some of those folks.”
Ryan Davis, Ontario County’s economic development director, is hopeful the large site now occupied by Crosman will be marketable to another company.
“East Bloomfield’s a great location, especially given the amount of buzz around the Tech Hub corridor status," Davis said. "I would like to think that an advanced manufacturing site of that size, on that location would be attractive to somebody in that space.”
In early July, the White House announced 12 regional technology hubs, including one in New York spanning the I-90 corridor between Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
The hubs are aimed at accelerating growth of the semiconductor industry.
