FCEDC PUBLISHES NEW STUDY HIGHLIGHTING MERCURY MARINE’S IMPACT ON FOND DU LAC COMMUNITY

June 12, 2017

Members of the marine industry will be interested to know that Mercury Marine continues to have a strong economic effect on the Fond du Lac community, this according to a new study commissioned by the Fond du Lac Economic Development Council and Impact DataSource. The study shows that Mercury continues to be one of the top employers in the state of Wisconsin, now employing 3,200 people at its global headquarters in Fond du Lac. Mercury’s employment in June 2017 is more than double what it was in 2009.

According to the study, Mercury has a total job impact of almost 10,000 jobs in the Fond du Lac community, meaning that every job at Mercury creates more than two jobs in the area. Mercury’s total economic impact in Fond du Lac, per the study, is close to four billion dollars. The new study also shows that Mercury’s impact on retail activity in the region has also increased 37-percent since 2009, accounting for more than $186 million in retail sales in the community.

“We always knew how valuable Mercury was to our community, but seeing the numbers from this new study is just amazing,” said Steve Jenkins, Fond du Lac Economic Development Council president. “One company has close to a four-billion-dollar economic impact on our community – that’s incredible. In 2009, Mercury made a commitment to grow and I’d say they have more than lived up to their commitments.”

Since 2009, Mercury has invested more than $800 million in R&D and expansion to its global headquarters; more than 80 percent of the work completed during that growth was done with Wisconsin based companies. In addition, Mercury has invested more than $600 million on supplies, services & materials from 2014-2016.

In January, Mercury Marine officially opened its new 49,000-square-foot electro-deposition paint (EDP) primer system expansion. Then in April, Mercury Marine officially announced the commissioning of the largest high-pressure die casting machine in North America.

“We are excited about the future of our company and the growth of the Fond du Lac community,” said John Pfeifer, Mercury Marine president. “Our commitment to this community was not just to expand our manufacturing capacity, but to build for the future. The more we can impact growth in the communities in which we work, the higher quality of life our employees will have outside of work.”

Impact DataSource prepared the above estimates based on information about Mercury Marine to provide an illustration of economic and fiscal impacts resulting from the manufacturer. Impact DataSource prepared this summary using various assumptions and the following sources:

(1) U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II)

(2) U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2014-15