www.wbjournal.com • Worcester Business Journal 25
25 YEARS: IMPACTFUL COMPANIES
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electronics, health-care devices and dis-
posables. Customers had begun to
demand more vertically integrated con-
tractors: vendors that can provide mul-
tiple production processes during vari-
ous stages in the manufacture of a par-
ticular product. Nypro began noticing a
shift in the consumer electronics market
in China several years ago, specifically
among cellphone makers. Integrated
players were scooping up manufacturing
contracts at low prices.
Lankton, who ran Nypro for decades
before stepping down in the early 2000s
— staying on as chairman — was respon-
sible for the company's ESOP, which had
made millionaires of several retirees. But
the plan also restricted how Nypro could
raise capital for growth. For example, the
company had to keep enough money to
pay departing employees. Also, it
couldn't sell much stock to outside inves-
tors because its ESOP restricted outside
ownership to less than 10 percent.
In early 2013, four months before
agreeing to the Jabil deal, Nypro
announced plans to add 100 jobs in
Clinton in such areas as assembly, engi-
neering and inspecting/packing, boost-
ing its Massachusetts headcount to more
than 900. The company employs more
than 12,000 in 10 countries.
In September 2013, two months after
becoming part of Jabil, Nypro began to
eye at least three Central Massachusetts
sites for a major expansion. The push to
acquire a roughly 200,000-square-foot
satellite manufacturing facility was
fueled by significant new long-term con-
tracts to make medical devices, a com-
pany spokesman reported at the time,
and will result in roughly 100 new jobs.
Nypro - and its longtime
leader Gordon Lankton -
are Clinton fixtures.
>> Continued on Page 26
