One of Chattanooga’s oldest manufacturers is shutting down production after 115 years due to the decline in coal production and the worsening of industrial activity this year amid coronavirus.
Chattanooga Boiler & Tank Co., known as CBT Manufacturing, is ceasing new production of fabricated materials at the company’s Main Street complex. The company told the last two dozen manufacturing workers still producing products this week that their jobs are ending and the manufacturing division will no longer fabricate tanks and boiler equipment.
“There is a lack of work in the industrial markets the company serves, an over-saturation of competition and, in many cases, an overly
aggressive customer base,” said Marianne Pastor, a vice president of Williams Enterprises, the Smyrna, Georgia-based parent company of Chattanooga Boiler & Tank. “Production will end when the work currently in the shop is completed.”
The company will keep its field support services and distribution operations, but CBT Manufacturing is ending its fabrication of tanks, boilers and other industrial equipment. The company has had about 35 to 40 manufacturing employees at its Chattanooga facility in recent years, but it has been cutting staff for several months, Pastor said.