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Wood Mode close to 100%

KREAMER — After seeing the Snyder County custom cabinet manufacturing plant forced to shut down due to a computer virus, Wood-Mode LLC General Manager Rod Hunter looked for a silver lining.

Hunter remained positive despite the difficulties the Kreamer-based company has faced over the past few weeks.

“We’ll come out of the gates with a 15 percent increase in production capacity, and we’re looking to hire some people as well,” Hunter said. “If there is good news, that’s it.”

Hunter said the Wood Mode facility is expected to be back at full operation by Thursday. Most of its approximately 550 workers were laid off after the virus infected the company’s servers on Jan. 10, causing the plant shutdown the next day.

The restart of operations has been staggered, with several employees returning to the office last week. A couple more from shipping and receiving returned Monday. All remaining employees will be back at work by Thursday.

Hunter said no orders were canceled during the shutdown and limited shipping of products took place.

The source of the virus is unknown, but he believes it originated overseas. It might have been in the system before it was detected, he said. Hunter believes it’s more than coincidental that the virus struck at 1 a.m. on Jan. 10, noting all the 1s.

A group of specialists helped Wood Mode remove the virus, restore much of the lost data and install new security safeguards. About $250,000 was spent to restore, rebuild and add additional security measures to its computer network, Hunter said.

Plans are to store data off-site to make it easier to retrieve in the event of another virus, Hunter said. The company’s emails also have been made more secure and no information was compromised, he added.

The financial impact of the shutdown should be minimal since no orders were canceled, Hunter said. Employees were encouraged to apply for unemployment benefits.

“Unfortunately, we’ve experienced this before with COVID and the state shutdown for six weeks,” he said.

Wood Mode’s employment has increased steadily since Mifflinburg businessman Bill French bought the assets of the old Wood Mode after its former owners shut it down abruptly in May 2019, putting 938 people out of work.

“We started with 100 when our doors opened in 2019 and grown steadily after the pandemic,” Hunter said. “One of our biggest challenges was getting raw materials: high-grade plywood and veneers.

“We’re re-opening our doors with increased capacity going forward,” he added.

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