‘Rapidly growing’ Lincoln Electric expands its footprint

The engineers of Lincoln Electric Automation in Bettendorf have a new business home. Last week, the engineering department moved into the remodeled business building at 2967 State St., Bettendorf. On Wednesday, Oct. 25, the business community welcomed that move with a Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony. That building – the former home of […]

The engineers of Lincoln Electric Automation in Bettendorf have a new business home. Last week, the engineering department moved into the remodeled business building at 2967 State St., Bettendorf. On Wednesday, Oct. 25, the business community welcomed that move with a Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony. That building – the former home of the Bereskin Gallery & Art Academy, and previously Foster Family Music Center – is now called the Lincoln Electric Automation Engineering Center. It houses about 25 Lincoln employees.

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“We are a rapidly growing company and we were running out of space,” Tyler Schurr, engineering manager at Lincoln, said during the welcoming ceremony that attracted more than 50 people from the business community and Lincoln. Mr. Schurr added that before the move, engineers were split up into a couple of different offices at that main Lincoln Electric building at 3120 State St. The move places all engineers into one site and makes the department more efficient. Also, with the move, Lincoln will be able to use the former engineering offices for additional production space to help the company meet increased demands. (Lincoln custom engineers robotic systems for arc welding and materials handling, and more.) The company is a “world leader in arc welding, robotic welding systems, plasma and oxy fuel cutting,” according to its Facebook page. “Thank you for your investment … and for bringing great jobs here,” said Bettendorf Mayor Bob Gallagher told the company at the ceremony, held in front of the new engineering center. After a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony, Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce and business and community leaders took a quick tour of the new engineering center. That center, at the moment, features rows of standing-desk work stations, big windows in the front of the building, but very few personal touches.  That will likely change in the near future. During the tour, one of the engineers told a visitor: “Tomorrow, there will be a whole rainforest of beautiful plants in this building.” The building, which boasts about 3,000 square feet, has actually been owned by Lincoln Electric Automation since about 2015, said Sean McKay, assistant engineering manager for Lincoln. He added that the company bought the building for possible future expansion and has been leasing it out to other businesses for the past several years. The 2967 State St. building has been more than a $1 million investment for the company, and Lincoln has spent more than $500,000 since July on remodeling and new furniture for the center, Mr. McKay added. In addition to touring the engineering center, visitors from the business community also got the chance to tour some of the manufacturing operations at 3120 State St., which is next door to the engineering building. Mr. McKay showed the visitors some of the many projects being worked on by Lincoln employees. In fact, one of the rooms that formerly housed the company engineers is now a meeting room with numerous status boards detailing the progress of many of those projects. Lincoln Electric Automation operates seven days a week with one work shift per day and employs 165 people in the Quad Cities. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the company has 71 manufacturing locations in 20 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices serving customers in over 160 countries.