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Southeastern Kentucky Rehabilitation Industries Inc. (SEKRI) faced long odds in its conversion from a "busy work" facility to a functional plant. But with company-wide determination, SEKRI went from a near bust to a boom.
Southeastern Kentucky Rehabilitation Industries Inc. (SEKRI) is not, nor was it ever, an ordinary apparel business. As a community rehabilitation program in the heart of Appalachian coal mining country, its primary purpose has always been to assist severely physically and mentally disabled clients in training for jobs elsewhere.
Almost 10 years ago, things changed dramatically for the nonprofit firm when, facing state and federal budget cuts, SEKRI's board of directors decided that the company either had to make its own money or perish. In the years since then, Corbin, KYbased SEKRI's sewn products story has taken many twists and turns that have included hitting a rock bottom of bankruptcy in 1992, and then lifting itself back up in the late 1990s to all-time productivity highs.
A Tall Order for Change
Founded in 1972, SEKRI originally employed four to eight professional staff members who served between 12 and 20 "clients," or disabled persons who were there to gain marketable work skills by working on projects such as furniture refinishing and small upholstery jobs. Funding for the facility came from subsidies, donations and federal and state grants.
SEKRI's original premise as a social program for the mentally and physically disabled worked well in the beginning. But the escalation of work-related injuries and debilitating illnesses in southeastern Kentucky eventually began to tax its operations. Furthermore, placing clients who completed the program into area jobs became increasingly difficult as the region's economic environment suffered from coal mining layoffs.
By 1989, state and federal budget cutting demanded that SEKRI find a moneymaking direction if it wanted to survive. The program's board of directors opted for a radical change: SEKRI would enter the arena of government contract sewing via the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) program. That year, SEKRI's clients went from doing differentiated increments of "busy work" without any consideration for profitability to filling an order for water bags for the forestry department.
Two years later, the program won a contract to produce 200,000 fatigue caps for the U.S. Marine Corps. - a milestone order that marked...