Contact-lens maker to close Norfolk plant, lay off 570

NORFOLK

CooperVision Inc.'s contact-lens manufacturing plant sit s quietly in an industrial pocket adjacent to the residential West Ghent neighborhood.

Spread across 70,000 square feet in five buildings, the plant operates around the clock, seven days a week. It employs about 570 people.

By the end of next year, they all will be gone.

CooperVision announced Thursday that it will close the plant in 2010 and transfer the jobs to plants in England and Puerto Rico.

The Norfolk plant had been producing more lenses with fewer employees, company officials said, but the work can be done even more efficiently at its plants overseas.

"I think everyone was surprised," said Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, who said he learned Thursday of the decision. "We find ourselves caught up in these global economic currents that we have little control over now.

"It would be one thing if the jobs were headed to Henrico or Prince William, or even to North Carolina," Fraim said. "But to feel like they're moving offshore, even if one of the locations is Puerto Rico, is a helpless feeling."

It will be Norfolk's largest manufacturing loss since the June 2007 closing of the Ford Motor Co. plant, which once employed 2,400.

Norfolk's last major job-loss announcement came in February, when the USAA insurance company announced it would move 475 jobs elsewhere by October.

CooperVision's jobs will be phased out, with the first cuts probably not occurring for at least three months, said Chuck Rogers, vice president of operations at the plant.

All workers will be given severance packages, and some will be eligible for transfers to other CooperVision plants, said Fernando Torre, executive vice president of global operations for CooperVision's parent firm, the Cooper Companies Inc., based in Pleasanton, Calif.

"We have a very good team here, and we want to make sure we're very fair with them," Torre said. "That is the reason we're doing this very gradually."

Valerie Villanueva, who has worked at the plant for 14 years, said employees learned of the closing Wednesday.

"We thought it was a secure job," said Villanueva, 45, of Virginia Beach. "They always told us we're doing a good job, and then suddenly you hear about this.

"It's really shocking."

The plant's buildings are dispersed on streets including Boissevain and Claremont avenues and Olney Road in the Chelsea section, just a couple of blocks from the Elizabeth River.

Fraim said city and company officials had previously worked without luck to seek a larger, consolidated location for CooperVision. But he said he did not believe that triggered the move.

The plant will produce 60 million soft lenses this year, mostly Proclear monthly disposables, which will be distributed worldwide, Rogers said. That amounts to 7 percent of CooperVision's annual global production, Torre said.

Its work force of 570 consists of about 505 full-time and 65 temporary workers, Rogers said. About 350 to 400 work on the manufacturing side, receiving $15 to $20 an hour, he said.

The complex also has administrative and engineering staff and departments, including purchasing and distribution.

The plant, Rogers said, dates at least to the early 1950s, when it was owned by a local business, Lombart Lenses.

Lombart was bought in 1996 by a British biotechnology company, Biocompatibles International, which sold the plant to CooperVision in 2002.

Torre said CooperVision's sales have continued to grow during the recession "but at a much slower rate." He declined to provide figures.

Fraim said, "I'm told the plant just had its best quarter ever here, but apparently the decision took into consideration other factors."

The plant once employed 750 people, Rogers said. "This site has produced more and more with fewer people," he said. But the company, Torre said, can be even more efficient by moving the jobs to the underu sed plants in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico, and Hamble, England.

Villanueva, who works in CooperVision's chemical lab, broke into tears when talking about the closing.

"We're praying for a miracle," she said after composing herself. "We're hoping they'll change their mind."

Fraim said, "We're obviously extremely upset, and we are making the sort of inquiries you would expect - to see if there is anything we can do to influence the decision."

Rogers said the plant will close in December 2010.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com