Kenworth employees and their family members recently marked the 25th anniversary of its Renton, WA, assembly plant with Kenworth Family Day.
The event included antique Kenworth trucks, employee classic car show, face painters and caricaturists, plant tours, City of Renton fire truck, food truck, Page Ahead children’s literacy program booth, pit stop challenge, human foosball, and a hearty barbecue lunch.
“More than 1,300 people from across PACCAR attended Kenworth Family Day, which was a great way to celebrate our employees and the plant’s 25th anniversary,” said Bart Hoemann, Kenworth's Renton plant manager. “Kenworth-Renton employees had an opportunity to showcase their workplace to their families, have some fun, and enjoy all the activities and food. Employees are critical to the plant’s success with the quality, innovation, technology and care they build into every Kenworth truck produced here.”
In 1993, Kenworth opened the 300,000 square-foot plant on a 40-acre site. The plant’s first truck, a Kenworth T600B – a later version of Kenworth’s first aerodynamic truck– was presented to Stevens Transport.
In 2000, Fortune magazine recognized the Renton plant as one of “America’s Elite Factories,” and the plant received Assembly Magazine’s inaugural “Assembly Plant of the Year Award” in 2004. A year later, Kenworth-Renton produced the 700,000th Kenworth truck in company history.
In the past 25 years, the Kenworth-Renton plant has produced more than 144,000 Kenworth trucks. The plant currently produces the T680, T880, T800, W900, C500, K500 and 963 models, along with medium duty Kenworth T370s and T440s. Nearly 20 percent of the plant’s current employees have been working for Kenworth since the plant opened.
Kenworth-Renton has achieved certification for its effective environmental management system, which supports the production of trucks in an environmentally responsible manner. The plant also received its fourth consecutive 2017 Gold Award from the King County (Wash.) Industrial Waste Program that annually honors local facilities whose business practices contribute to protecting regional water quality.
“Kenworth-Renton continues the company’s amazing legacy of making excellent Kenworth trucks in the Seattle area for the past 95 years,” said Hoemann.
