JRDS stays true to its core mission

The name may be new, but the mission is not.

Back in December 2014 when Jay-Randolph Developmental Services purchased the former Hartzell Fan building on the north edge of Portland, some folks were puzzled.

What was a longtime non-profit social service agency like Jay-Randolph up to acquiring an industrial property? And what the heck was this new thing called JRDS Industries?

Answer: The same thing Jay-Randolph has been doing for decades.

“JRDS has been performing contract work for businesses in Jay and Randolph counties for at least 30 years,” said Ken Fredericksen, who has the somewhat unwieldy job title of senior director of industry, pre-vocational services and information technology.

Jay-Randolph’s core mission is to assist and nurture those who are developmentally disabled in the two counties. That translates into a variety of services such as group homes, counseling and training that can provide a path toward independence.

That last one is where JRDS Industries comes in.

“For a long time it was called JR Industries,” said Fredericksen. But when the Hartzell building, where fiberglass fans for industrial air moving equipment had been produced since the 1960s, became available for sale, a new brand was launched.

The market niche, however, was unchanged.

What JRDS Industries provides is industrial production that is hand-labor intensive, the sort of work that can’t be effectively done by automation of any kind but which is straightforward enough that it’s a good fit for developmentally disabled adults.

So are the people who work there JRDS clients or employees?

“They’re both,” said Fredericksen.

“We really want to create a real-world work environment for the clients that we serve,” said Fredericksen. Ideally, that environment would be transitional. “They would eventually graduate into a community job of their choosing. They’re in a work-training program.”

But having a workforce that is largely developmentally disabled has unique challenges. How, for example, do you pay them? An hourly wage simply would not work.

Instead, Fredericksen explained, JRDS goes to great lengths to translate the productivity of hourly workers into a metric that makes sense on a piece-work basis.

“Most of the work they do is piece-rated work,” he said.

To translate hourly work to piece-work, JRDS videotapes time studies of fully-trained, non-client production workers doing a specific task. The results of three videotapes are analyzed to determine average production.

At the same time, JRDS conducts an annual wage survey locally in an attempt to determine the prevailing wage.

“We try as best we can to get to an apples to apples comparison,” said Fredericksen.

That hourly wage is then used on a pro-rata basis when compared to the average production from the time study.

“We actually do have some people who are making more than the time study,” said Fredericksen.

So, what sorts of work are the client/employees doing? And who are they doing it for?

Sonoco Protective Solutions is a major customer. 

The Styrofoam packaging manufacturer needs a partner company that can assemble cardboard boxes, then take the foam packaging and put the two together as a finished product for companies selling everything from pharmaceuticals to that package of cheese and sausage your Aunt Mabel sent you from Wisconsin last Christmas.

That sort of work is done at the former Hartzell building. At the same time, JRDS Industries has a mobile crew that goes to MSSL Wiring Systems LLC in the Portland industrial park.

“Our relationship with MSSL has been kind of expanding,” said Fredericksen.

JRDS client/employees put little rubber seals on MSSL wiring harness that go into everything from automobiles to garden tractors. Another task involves putting plastic pegs into the end of wire connectors.

“We’re really excited about that job because everyone can do it,” said Frederickson.

Meanwhile, Fort Recovery Industries has found that JRDS Industries is the place to go when laundered cotton work gloves come back and need to be sorted into usable pairs.

Not every JRDS adult client takes part in the program.

“It becomes our job to find creative ways to motivate people,” said Fredericksen.

Some of the older clients think of themselves as “retired.”

“They’re adults and they can make their own determination what they want to be involved in,” he said.

But throughout it all, Fredericksen added, the mission has not changed.

It’s about the clients, about the people, not about making a buck.

“If we at the very least break even on a project, we’re going to continue,” he said.