By Harry Moskos
Of the Journal
SPARE CHANGE: Ken Mitchell knows what he wants for Christmas— a Tempur-Pedic mattress.
The manager of Tempur-Pedic's new $100 million factory on Albuquerque's West Side says the first mattress should roll off the assembly line by late December.
"I am just hoping it is a Christmas present," Mitchell said.
While he hopes he gets his gift in time, Mitchell doesn't expect the plant to be in full operation until January. The plant will have 60 employees at the start of the year and expand to about 100 by mid-year, he said.
The 750,000-square-foot plant on a new street named Tempur-Pedic Parkway, near Paseo del Volcan and Interstate 40, will eventually employ 300 at full capacity and produce about 30,000 foam mattresses a month.
"We want to get to 300 employees as soon as possible," Matt Clift, Tempur-Pedic's executive vice president of global operations, told the Journal by phone from corporate headquarters in Lexington, Ky.
"We don't like to sit on these investments very long," Clift said. "Our plans are to fill it up as quickly as we can. We see significant momentum in the market place."
In fact, Mitchell and Clift see the Albuquerque plant as taking care of all the company's distribution west of the Mississippi, which is between 35 percent and 40 percent of the company's U.S. business.
Tempur-Pedic has been in business since 1992. It started in Denmark as a European company and expanded to the United States in 1993 on a small scale. The company took off and went public at the end of 2003.
Its other plant in the United States is at Duffield, Va., which is near the Virginia-Tennessee border. Clift oversees all three manufacturing plants— the two in the United States and the original in Denmark.
Mitchell moved to Albuquerque from East Tennessee.
He describes Albuquerque's facility as a "vertical integrated plant— one where we bring in raw materials and ship out the finished goods."
What makes the Tempur-Pedic product different is that it is a foam-only mattress with no springs, which the company says distributes body weight more evenly than one with springs.
"We actually bring in the materials first to make the foam. We have a propriety recipe— similar to a Coca-Cola-type thing," Mitchell explained. "It ranges from as little as eight materials to as many as 20, depending on the mattress."
Much of the new building will be used to cure the foam.
"Our magic is our Tempur material," Clift interjected. "It is a visco elastic polyurethane foam. That is the proprietary part of our product that ends up in all of our mattresses and pillows."
The Albuquerque plant will make only the mattresses, which are available in Albuquerque stores as well as through the company's Web site or call center.
Prices vary. Using the queen size as a model, the product called the "original mattress" sells for $1,199 while the highest priced mattress, "the grandbed," costs $5,499. There are several models in between. In addition, Mitchell said, only non-allergic materials are used. They also incorporate an ingredient that protects the mattress from dust mites.
Both Clift and Mitchell had strong praise for state and local officials in attracting Tempur-Pedic to Albuquerque.
"We basically looked at 50 sites west of the Mississippi," Mitchell said. "We settled on Albuquerque for several reasons, including economic conditions and work force. They were the big hitters.
"Chats and conversations with local folks about the work force and growth convinced us that this was really a great place for distribution," Mitchell added.
"The governor was active in helping us make the decision, as well as the Albuquerque Economic Development foundation. And, of course, the mayor, City Council and County Commission. We appreciate the way the city and county governments worked together."
Bernalillo County approved a $100 million industrial revenue bond package to help lure Tempur-Pedic to Albuquerque.
"We have been very well received," Mitchell said, adding that the plant will help boost the economy. "The gross receipts tax was $3.9 million from just building the plant alone."
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