HUDSON – One local business is showing improvement in the down economy, and recently hired 12 new employees to work at its new location.

Airex Filter, with headquarters on Clement Road in Hudson, expanded to a second location on Executive Drive this spring. The building will be used to manufacture and distribute filters for commercial heating and air conditioning units.

Owner William Carroll, 56, of Windham, has led the company for 39 years. He moved it from Lowell, Mass., to Hudson in 2003.

Carroll closed on the Executive Drive building in December, and started moving inventory inside at the beginning of spring.

Carroll said the company spent “more time and money on the inside” than expected because the building had been neglected for a few years, but now everything is starting to move forward.

“I wanted to start slow because we need to sell the product we’re producing now,” he said. “I absolutely refuse to lay anybody off. The goal is to hire more people and add more lines.”

The company now employs 42 people, including the 12 who were hired to work at the new location.

“We’re a small operation, but we’re growing,” Carroll said.

Airex Filter first added 10,000 square feet onto the back of its building on Clement Street, but the company “grew out of that,” Carroll said. The price of the Executive Drive property gave the company a chance to branch out further.

Carroll said summer is the company’s busy season, and he wanted the new building to be up and ready in time.

“We’ve picked up a couple of decent accounts, and we wanted to have enough equipment to satisfy our customers,” he said.

Airex secured a contract with the state, which Carroll said the company was “fighting for” for a couple of years. The contract covers a “blanket number of facilities” throughout the state, he said.

Airex Filter has about 150,000 pieces in stock at the Executive Drive location, Carroll said, and about 75,000 in the Clement Street location.

The filters are distributed mostly to regional wholesalers in New England and New York, although some buyers come from as far as Pennsylvania, Carroll said.

Carroll said several townspeople offered to help with the move to a new building, which wasn’t the case in 2003 when the company first moved to Hudson. He thought the poor economy has had a humbling effect on the town.

“A few years ago, they weren’t as friendly,” he said. “Things were very good for Hudson for a long time, but with all the empty property and the tax base that’s been lost, they treat businesses a little more friendly.”

Cameron Kittle can be reached at 594-6523 or ckittle@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, check Kittle out on Twitter (@Telegraph_CK).

Newsletter