BRIGGS & STRATTON TO GET NEW MANAGER

POPLAR BLUFF -- Mike Thompson, Briggs & Stratton plant manager for the past eight years, is leaving Poplar Bluff for Alabama.

Thompson will manage plant operations in Auburn, Ala., Statesboro, Ga., and Milwaukee beginning Jan. 1. Briggs & Stratton is moving its Milwaukee operations to Alabama within "the next couple of years."

Thompson said a new plant manager had not yet been chosen for Poplar Bluff.

Thompson has been the local plant manager since 1987, when the plant was "just a piece of paper." He said, "We've grown from employing nobody in 1988 to employing 800 people."

The "success" of the Quantum engine, which the Poplar Bluff plant manufactures, has been "phenomenal," he said.