A short drive from the plant that once housed industrial titan Bethlehem Steel before its bankruptcy in 2001, Lehigh Valley Plastics each week produces tens of thousands of parts needed in machines across the US.
Operating out of a 57,000-sq-foot warehouse, it manufactures sheaves for cranes, wear pads for truck producers and gaskets used by the oil industry. Its clients also include medical equipment producers and food companies.
Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, a logistics and manufacturing hub just a day’s drive from a third of US consumers, has become an emblem of America’s economy — a hive of economic activity that has defied economists who feared a recession after more than a year of restrictive interest rates.