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03/08/2013 05:17 PM

LeRoy Company Impressed With ARC Partnership

A business in Genesee County is giving developmentally-disabled people the tools they need to succeed. The new employees at Bessey Tools in LeRoy are some of the best the company has ever had.

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It's not what she can't do, but what she can do, that makes Collette Gross special.

"We make clamps, and we do the printing, and I tape boxes together and put them on the skid."

Collette is developmentally disabled, but to watch her work at Bessey Tools, you wouldn't know it at all.

"It's still at a very high-level of quality," said Andrew Fera, Bessey Tools vice president.

Fera says the international company decided to partner with Genesee ARC for warehouse labor a little over two months ago.

"People in the community that wouldn't normally have jobs are now contributing to the tax base; which helps the entire community, which creates more jobs, which creates more demand, more supply, so it's really a win-win situation for us," Fera said.

"They are very precise in their measurements," said Paul Saskowski.

Saskowski, business coordinator with ARC, strives to remove the term "disability" from everyone's vocabulary.

"They've seen the work we've done so far," he said, "and they want to bring us even more operations here, and I think that's a testament to what we do."

"We had our CEO and COO from Germany here last week, and they left the meeting with a team from Genesee ARC saying 'We can do a lot more,' and how impressed they were. So... we're here to stay," Fera said.

Collette and her seven co-workers couldn't be happier.

"It's better pay," she said with a laugh. "It's better, not sitting at home."