Trombetta to pursue other interests

Evanite Fiber Corp. has announced a changing of the guard as the company's longtime president, Frank Trombetta, leaves to pursue other interests.

"I'll be gone by the end of (this) week," Trombetta said.

Stepping in as the new top manager of the south Corvallis glass fiber manufacturer is Ken Eckroth, who comes to the company from SABIC Innovative Plastics in Ottawa, Ill., where he was the site general manager. Before that he worked in manufacturing in the semiconductor, oil and gas, electronics and chemical industries.

Eckroth's new title - director of glass fiber operations - reflects a shift in structure within Evanite and its parent company. Hollingsworth & Vose, a privately held firm based in East Walpole, Mass., has $250 million in sales and

14 manufacturing facilities around the world.

"We're integrating operations more with Hollingsworth & Vose," Eckroth said.

Evanite makes glass fiber for use in specialty markets, including air filters for clean rooms and batteries for telecommunications facilities. In addition to its Corvallis plant, the company also has a factory in Chongqing, China.

Employment at both sites is down because of the weak economy, with about 80 people currently on the payroll in Corvallis. Eckroth said he hopes to be able to restart idled production lines soon.

"We are seeing signs of some pickup," Eckroth said. "We have plans to restart it in the next month. We'll bring people back."

Trombetta has been associated with Evanite since 1991, when he was retained as a consultant to help guide the company through a Chapter 11 reorganization. In 1995, after the firm emerged from bankruptcy, he was named president.

Looking back on that 18-year run, he said that what he's most proud of is the employees he's worked with, "the people here who were mature enough, smart enough and robust enough to work their way through the bankruptcy process and put the company on a sound financial footing again."

Now 63, Trombetta said he's not ready to retire, but he is looking to cut back on his day-to-day responsibilities. He wants to devote more time to his family, including a daughter in Texas and a son and two grandkids in Georgia. He's also involved in a couple of early-stage companies in the mid-valley, including Corvallis-based Perpetua Power Source Technologies.

"I just have a lot of outside interests I need to start paying attention to," Trombetta said.

During his tenure with Evanite, Trombetta presided over the shutdown of the company's hardboard business, the property's rezoning from industrial to mixed-use transitional and a long-running effort to clean up an old toxic chemical spill.

Both Evanite and its parent company are bound by agreements with the state Department of Environmental Quality to complete the environmental cleanup, and Eckroth said there would be no lapse in that effort.

"Frank and the team that were here are responsible people trying to do the right thing, and we're going to continue that," Eckroth said. "Everybody here wants to do the right thing. We live in the community too."

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.