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Seibel Modern: employing refugees works for the business
Seibel Modern worker Virgilio Vazquez from Cuba with Debbie Bowers from Journey's End Refugee Services.
Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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"We are not in business to employ refugees, but to make money." Believe it or not, those tough-sounding words come from the president of a company that Journey's End Refugee Services in Buffalo, New York, counts among its "exemplary employers of refugees."
Resettled refugees constitute about a quarter of the 90-member workforce at Seibel Modern Manufacturing & Welding Corporation. "If we can help some along the way, why not? We feel good about it," said Leon Seibel, the company's president, "but if it didn't work for the business we wouldn't do it."
"It has worked out," affirmed Leon's nephew Mark Seibel, the company's vice president, "and we have hired more. Refugees know they need the job. They are supporting themselves and their families. For many, it's their first job and they need a good track record. They have good attendance, and give a good, honest day's work. And their turnover is low."
In turn, Debbie Bowers, Employment Specialist at Journey's End, which is a Church World Service refugee resettlement affiliate agency, praised Seibel Modern as a great employer. "This family-owned company offers steady work, nice colleagues, and good benefits – everything we want for our clients," she said. "These are such good jobs that the refugees Seibel Modern hires stay between four and six years."
Located in Lancaster, N.Y., a 25-minute bus ride from downtown Buffalo, Seibel Modern was founded in the 1940s by Leon's father, William Seibel, while he was working full time as industrial arts teacher at Lancaster High School. His first business venture was making children's tin pail and shovel sets, according to a story in The Low Bidder trade journal.
Over the years, Seibel Modern's products – often but not always made of steel or aluminum – have included cases for forklift batteries, beams for bridges and tunnels, embedment plates for concrete precasters, noisewall posts, grates, skids, curb angles, racks, hoists, catwalks – and even the City of Buffalo's bus shelters, made of glass, aluminum, steel, and fiberglass.
Seibel Modern's parts are in use across the United States, from Arizona to New York, and from Washington to Arizona to Delaware, and are custom-made to precise specifications, often on short notice. Some products are on a "just in time" basis.
A recent tour of the shop floor moved through room after room full of rods, beams, and stacks of metal sheets. Forklifts moved loads back and forth amidst welders at work, sparks flying.
 James Kowal from the Sudan at work at Seibel Modern. Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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Mark Seibel described how Seibel Modern first began hiring refugees. It was 14 years ago, and he had just started working at the company. "We had 35 employees in the shop. We were going through a big expansion, to 75 employees almost overnight."
Mark and Lee happened to be talking to Cindy Kahler, a long-time family friend, about their frustration finding and keeping new staff. She was working with Journey's End, and replied, "We've got refugee job seekers for you to consider."
Bowers said Seibel Modern "calls me anytime they have a job opening. English language fluency doesn't seem to be an issue if my client has the needed skills." Mark Seibel added, "We are candid about the kind of people we need. I might say, 'We have an opening for a person who can read a tape measure.'
"Journey's End doesn't always have people with the skills I need," he noted, "but the employment agency doesn't either."
Today the Seibel Modern "refugee workforce" includes mostly Sudanese and Cubans, along with U.S.-born persons and non-refugee immigrants.
Asked what accommodations Seibel Modern has made for its refugee employees, Mark Seibel told of one who is petitioning for his wife to join him in the United States and has been granted two "home leaves," and several others who were granted shift changes so they could go back to school.
"There have been a few with rudimentary welding whom we have trained," he said. "Others came as general workers, learned on their own, and moved up."
Bowers added that from time to time Journey's End staff will come with translators "to do a special session" with a group of employees; for example, to explain that they need to take the company's benefits package "and not be on Medicaid anymore."
Mark Seibel said Seibel Modern recently polled its employees as part of a company evaluation, and "15 refugee and other immigrant employees said, 'We should learn English,' so we are considering starting a lunchtime class."
Since his company's involvement with Journey's End, Mark's congregation, Amherst Community Church, has cosponsored two or three refugee families.
"Our experience with Journey's End and with refugees has been deeply rewarding on both a personal and professional level," he said. "I would highly recommend the hiring of refugees to any company in need of loyal, dependable, hard working people. I would expect that they would find the experience as rewarding as we all have at Seibel Modern."
Third in a series of articles featuring enterprises identified by CWS affiliates as exemplary employers of refugees.
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