Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Group nearing completion of another expansion

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

When a business grows, more space is needed.

That means another building is being constructed on site at Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Group in Charles City.

Owners Steve and Jenny Stirling have expanded their business a third time now in the last five years. The latest addition is a 25,000-square-foot building that can house their machines that make blow-mold plastic parts for automotive or agriculture companies.

Parts for heavy trucks or Caterpillars are where a lot of Hawkeye’s products are used. Companies like Caterpillar, NaviStar, Freightliner Trucks and John Deere are just some of the companies that have parts shipped to them.

Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Groups delivers products all across the nation, according to Steve Stirling.

“We’re growing fast,” he said.

Stirling started the company in 2001 with a workforce of 10 employees. Currently the company has 45 employees and is looking to hire 10 more. Stirling said the size of his workforce has doubled in the past year.

“Right now we’re currently getting ready to interview for a night shift supervisor,” said Jenny Stirling.

Stirling runs his business round the clock — six days a week, except on Sundays. Employees work three 12-hour shifts, starting at either 6 a.m. or 6 p.m.

The company started to grow in 2012 when the Stirlings bought injection and blow-mold machines for plastic production. Prior to that, Stirling ran a mold shop that created blocks of aluminum molds that could weigh as much as a ton (2,000 pounds).

“We took over all of the plastic production, so that was the need for the expansion,” said Jenny.

Tool shops build the mold, then the mold goes into the plastic machines and the mold produces the part. Hawkeye can specialize in product development along with tooling, fixturing, prototyping parts and pre-production parts.

Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Group won first place last year in the industrial category for automotive/transportation at the annual Blow Molders Conference in Oak Brook, Illinois. Hawkeye won the award for co-extrusion blow-molded clean-side duct for a glider truck kit from Harrison Truck Centers.

Steve said the new building should be finished by next month and once complete there will be a total of 50,000 square feet of mold manufacturing and plastic production space.

Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Group has been working with Joel Thompson of First Citizens Bank, Tim Fox of the Charles City Area Development Corp., the Butler County REC and Corn Belt Cooperative for help funding the expansion.

Will the the Hawkeye Preferred Tooling Group continue to grow into the future?

“There’s opportunities,” said Steve.