Located in the town of Independence, Kansas is Hackney's Midwest plant. It specializes in beverage truck bodies and trailers, and although it celebrated its 30^th anniversary in Independence in September, the general public might not realize several points about it.

Those points include how big the manufacturing plant is, how much it produces and how extensively its products are used according to general manager Kevin Sears.

The company is located on 28 acres at 300 Hackney Avenue where more than 100 employees work in the office, sheet metal fabrication, assembly, warehouse and other areas totaling 200,000 square feet.

The plant is a division of Specialized Vehicles Corporation, which is headquarters in Washington, N.C. The reason Hackney located a branch here was "the need to have something to service the Midwest and the West Coast," Sears said.

"The logistics of manufacturing" especially "from Texas straight up through Illinois," made southeast Kansas an ideal spot. Besides that, he explained, "sending units to this area for repair costs much less" than sending them back to the East Coast.

The local groundbreaking was held in May 1972, and the plant got underway with 17 employees in September 1972. There are seven employees who have been here 30 years and 13 who have been here more than 25 years, Sears said.

Because local employees average tenure in 14 years, "it says something very positive about Hackney that they’ve stayed as long as they have," he continued.

Its estimated that between late 1972 and this year 30,000 truck body and trailers will have been produced here, with the first unit having been for Coca-Cola, he said.

In about the last three years, Hackney has been branching out from beverage trucks to also manufacturing vending and plumbing units, the later in particular being a growing market, Sears explained.

"The company has also been manufacturing kit orders for export. Hackney produces all components needed in a truck body or trailer, and the kits are shipped to licensed assemblers around the world", he said.

While products manufactured or services provided in Independence generally involve "areas west of the Mississippi River," Sears pointed out, they can also involve places as distant as Japan, Mexico and South America.

Specialized Vehicles Corporation also has facilities in Washington, North Carolina, Lakeland, Florida, and Kidron, Ohio.