Audia mobilizes 213-member workforce in Cross Creek County Park
If you donated a Christmas tree to Cross Creek County Park, here’s what happened to it: County employees and employees of Audia International Inc. prepared them to become an aquatic habitat, drilling holes for cable attached to concrete blocks. The trees were then taken on a short boat trip and submerged in Cross Creek Lake.
Mary Beth Gleason of Holland, Mich., and Zach Thompson of Wixom, Mich., prepare biodegradable plastic sheeting used to keep weeds from choking thousands of seedlings to be planted at Cross Creek County Park.
Tuesday was not a typical day at the office for global sales and customer support groups of Audia International Inc. Their work day was one of community service spent outdoors in a rain-free, lakeside environment at Cross Creek County Park, and park users will reap the benefits.
Local people may be familiar with 60-year-old Washington Penn Plastic Co., but it is also the headquarters of Audia, which employs a diverse group of people. Stephen Fahr of Cologne, Germany, was working side by side with Larry DePaoli of Uniform Color Co. of Holland, Mich., building picnic tables with Rob Heijenrath of Maastricht, Netherlands, and Pepe Tovar of Puebla, Mexico.
A cacophony of hammers pounded lumber into 14 tables in and around the rebuilt Shelter No. 3, the scene of a Thanksgiving Day fire.
Others scampered up scaffolding and wielded their tools atop roofs of other new shelters overlooking the lake. Juan Garcia of Monterrey, Mexico, was among those nailing shingles.
Farther from the lake, Takanori Kurisu of Tokyo, Japan, was part of a seedling-planting team with Laura Marialke of Holland, Mich., and Matt Tiza of Detroit, whose mom hails from Westmoreland County. Other employees came from Southern Polymer Inc. of Atlanta, Ga.
Ryder Bricker of Shepherd, Mont., near Billings, was present at Cross Creek to oversee the transformation of a meadow to a future forest of blue spruce, white spruce, Rocky Mountain juniper and jack pine. His job title is “carbon rancher.” He attempts, through sequestration of carbon, to keep the company carbon-neutral. He explained that long sheets of plastic, which will biodegrade in three to five years, keep noxious species like ragweed from choking tiny trees.
Romain Adcock of Clermont, France, north of Paris, and Adia Jackson of Knoxville, Tenn., had a quick tutorial from county employees Steven Wright of Avella and Jeff Donahue, superintendent of recreation, on how to recycle Christmas trees as aquatic habitat by drilling holes in the trunks, feeding cable through the holes and tying the cable to concrete blocks. The life-jacketed Audia team then ferried the weighted trees, still redolent of pine, into the center of the lake and heaved them overboard.
“Just think,” Donahue told those who were part of his international work detail. “You’re making nurseries for little fish to hide, and then the big fish come and eat them.”
They were just a few of the 213-member workforce Audia deployed as part of the daylong project embedded within a series of meetings scheduled through midday Thursday.
Martin Devine, chief operating officer of Audia, said before embarking on the aquatic habitat project, “We’re a global company in roughly 20 different countries. We meet every two years. Our organizational headquarters in Washington, Pa., brings together its entire commercial team to do a community service project and to build on our teamwork as an organization.”
Audia materials become part of buses, cars, tools and appliances manufactured by the likes of Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Whirlpool and Electrolux. The firm has almost 300 employees in Washington.
“We’re a Washington, Pa., company,” Devine said. “This a place where it’s easy to give back to a great community.”