Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher joined Hendrickson officials this week in breaking ground for a $24.3 million trailer suspension plant in Pulaski County. Expected to open this summer, the plant will occupy a 160,000-square-foot facility
located on 19 acres in Somerset’s Valley Oak Industrial Park where it will produce trailer axles and trailer air suspensions for the heavy-duty transportation industry.
Somerset will be Hendrickson’s second facility in Kentucky. In 1998, Hendrickson Truck Suspension Systems opened a plant in Lebanon. The Somerset plant becomes the sixth manufacturing plant for Hendrickson Trailer Suspension Systems headquartered in Canton, Ohio, a business unit of Hendrickson based in Itasca, Ill. Other trailer suspension facilities include a plant and research and development center at Canton; plants in Mitchell, S.D., Lebanon, Ind., Clarksville, Tenn., and Lugoff, S.C., and distribution centers in Canada and Mexico.
Hendrickson began in 1913 with the founding of The Hendrickson Motor Truck Co. and today is a major supplier to every North American heavy-duty truck and trailer OEM, as well as many manufacturers in Europe, Austria, Mexico, Japan and Latin America. The Hendrickson operation comprises more than 3,000 people, with 21 facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and the Pacific Rim.