P&G plant manager talks to Lions Club

Marc Schoch has only managed Procter & Gamble since August, but he said he has already experienced Cape Girardeau's "mix of Midwest work ethic and Southern hospitality."

Schoch spoke Wednesday at a Cape Girardeau Lions Club lunch. He highlighted his experience with the company, described the corporation's focus on sustainability and emphasized the plant's impact on the community. The plant, one of the county's largest employers, was built 40 years ago this year. "When a plant this size comes to a community of this size, the relative impact is huge," he said. "Between wages, contracts we support, community donations and health-care benefits, we are pumping an excess of $100 million into the community."

He highlighted a company program that provides tetanus shots to needy children and described how the plant recycles 95 percent of its waste. The plant uses water from the Mississippi River, which it then processes and returns cleaner than it started, he said.

Before coming to Missouri, Schoch worked in Ohio, Pennsylvania and in Osaka, Japan, where he was a plant manager for four years. Two of his children attend college on the East Coast, and another attends Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau.

With 1,300 acres, 80 acres of which are under one roof, the Cape Girardeau P&G plant is the largest in the country, Schoch said.

Much of the meeting was spent playing a trivia game, where Lions Club members guessed the annual sales of P&G globally ($76 million), some of the company's billion-dollar brands (Pampers, Crest, Tide and Bounty, among others) or how many employees there are at the local plant (1,300 with about 450 contractors).

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123