Streator glass plant honored by Miller

Miller Brewing Co. recently honored the O-I glass manufacturing plant in Streator for producing 650 million bottles for the brewery last year.

The plant, formerly called Owens-Brockway, then Owens-Illinois, is almost as full of stories as it is bottles.

For example, Steve Schmillen, president of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers International Union Local 140, started working there in 1969 while still in high school.

"My mother didn´t even know that I skipped school to apply for a job," said Schmillen, whose daughter Kerri now works at the plant as well.

Then there´s Jim Green, who makes sure the furnaces maintain the right temperatures. He proudly wears a Miller hat proclaiming the title "Master of the Grill."

"My dad always said I played with fire as a kid and now I get to as an adult," he laughed.

Employees are very loyal to O-I products, despite the pubs across the street from the plant that advertise Budweiser and Old Style. O-I workers haven´t sipped anything but Miller bottles since the brewery became a customer in 1995. Today, Miller is O-I´s only customer.

"If I catch one of my salaried folks drinking from cans, they don´t come in to work the next day," joked plant manager Ken Sokol.

O-I has been an integral part of Streator for decades. Owens Bottle Co. began producing beer and beverage bottles there in 1916. The plant also produced ketchup bottles and drug and chemical containers for a while. From 1920 to 1933, during prohibition, Owens couldn´t produce beer bottles.

In the late 1960s, nearly 3,500 people worked at the Streator plant. Today, that number is down to 210, Sokol said.

"It´s kind of sad because the footprint of this factory is so large. We´re just using a small portion of it," he said. "Streator used to be the glass capital of the world. There was more glass manufactured here than anywhere else in the world."

New technologies streamlined the glass-making process, eliminating thousands of jobs.

"We knew we were going to lose those jobs. We told people it was going to happen," Schmillen said.

While not as many people work there now, O-I remains the fifth largest employer in Streator, according to the Streator Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

St. Mary´s Hospital tops the list with 550 employees, followed by Vactor Manufacturing Inc., 442; U.S. Food Service, 400; and Hilton Reservations Worldwide, 220.