HUDSON – A Massachusetts manufacturing company will open its first North American fa­cility in Hudson sometime within the first quarter of 2016, hiring up to 40 new employees in the next few years.

RHM International LLC, based in Brookline, Mass., finalized its purchase of a 44,000-square-foot building in the Sagamore Indus­trial Park, at 29 Flagstone Drive, and will begin production of high-voltage transformers and bush­ings for power utility companies. The company operates two plants in China and opted to establish its first U.S. location in New Hamp­shire given its business-friendly environment and close proximity to Boston.

The Hudson site, formerly used as a warehouse and shipping facil­ity for the medical device manu­facturer Atrium Medical Corp., was attractive to RHM officials because of its clean environment for processing.

"We were very excited about that building; it had the key ele­ments that were important to us," Eric Euvrard said in a conference call last week with The Telegraph. "For us, finding a building like the one we found in Hudson should reflect, as well, that perception to our customers."

The company also cited the en­ergy climate changing toward re­newables such as solar and wind that could drive down costs, as well as the region’s better access to European markets.

Town documents say RHM in­tends on opening the facility with 10 employees with the hope of having 40 employees occupy the site by the end of 2020. Euvrard said it is too early to say where new employees will come from, but he estimated one quarter of the workforce are from the exist­ing operation.

There is limited trucking as­sociated with the site use and no significant impact on local traffic is expected.

Documents provided to the Hud­son Planning Board indicate the existing building remains in good shape. The high-voltage power business is a regulated in­dustry, leading to RHM con­struction a one-story, 10,000 square-foot building addition to accommodate a 65-foot tower needed to test and cer­tify high voltage products.

Construction is expected to take roughly five-to-six months and after certifica­tion, it will do final assem­bly and ship to its North American customers.

RHM’s technology uses high voltage polymer-based insulations in lieu of trans­former oil to provide utili­ties with significantly lon­ger service life.

"We are a high perfor­mance, high quality manu­facturer and for us it’s critical to ensure that every single product coming out of that site will have the same quality as the ones that we have been manufacturing in China so far," Euvrard said.

"Over the past 25 years, we haven’t had any failure reported on any of our prod­ucts," he said. "And when you move production from one site to another, especially when you have to reconsider the supply chain, you have to consider that there might be little things that you are not aware that are going to be changing at the site and that could affect the overall qual­ity of the product."