Kentucky Venture Lands Toyota Contract

A new joint venture formed between Textron Automotive and minority-owned Jackson Plastics, Inc. of Nicholasville, Ky. has landed a contract to supply Toyota Motor Manufacturing with interior trim components for the 2002 Camry model. The j-v company, Synova Plastics, will be headquartered in Morristown, Ind., and will be managed by both partners with Jackson Plastics founder and president Henry Jackson heading up the firm.

Jackson Plastics is a contract injection molding firm with sales of about $12 million. The company operates two molding plants, one in Nicholasville and a new 52,000 sq.ft. plant in Danville, Ill. The company has been a supplier to Textron since 1995 and has earned a reputation as a quality automotive supplier. Both Textron and Toyota supported the organization of Synova to serve Toyota s interior trim needs.

The value of the contract was not released but Synova will begin supplying parts to Toyota in July 2001 for the 2002 Camry that is assembled at Toyota s Georgetown, Ky. plant.

Molding automotive parts is not new to Jackson Plastics. The company cut its teeth in the mid-nineties as a sub-contractor to McKechnie Plastics molding parts for Chrysler Corp. and Toyota. In 1995, Jackson had three injection presses and 15 employees. Today the company employs 200 people at both manufacturing sites and Henry Jackson says he expects to nearly double the company s sales by the end of this year.