Pro-Tec Coating Co. Plant

The Northwest Ohio Piping Industry helped make Pro-Tec Coating Co.’s dreams of rolling out a new line of high-strength steel a reality this year by constructing an expansion for the company’s Leipsic facility.

Pro-Tec is now able to process new grades of high-strength steel that will aid the world’s automakers in building lighter and stronger cars that will provide drivers with better fuel economy and improved safety. Pro-Tec is already a supplier to most major automakers that have manufacturing operations in the United States.

The company invested $400 million into the Putnam County plant located 45 miles southwest of Toledo, and was awarded a $500,000 rapid outreach grant from the Ohio Department of Development related to the project in late 2010.

The new line will produce 500,000 tons of high-grade, high-strength steel each year.

Officials said the expansion added 80 jobs to the facility, which now employs 317 people. It also created about 500 construction jobs.