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Award-winning Homecoming

When the video Welcome to Riverside recently won the Silver Telly Award – the highest honor in international video competition – the celebration became a bit of a family affair.

Depicting the operations of the uniform company Riverside Manufacturing, a major employer in Moultrie, the video was written, directed and edited by Ned Morgan, a six-year video veteran at Quick Start, who grew up in Moultrie, and whose father worked as a vice president at Riverside for 20 years.

Quick Start’s award-winning media group had already been recognized as a 1995 Telly Award finalist for their video Introduction to Riverside. In addition to the 2003 Silver Telly, Quick Start’s latest video for Riverside also won a gold Aurora Award.

Riverside’s President and CEO Jerry Vereen is very pleased with the video. “Quick Start has done a tremendous amount for Riverside,” he says. “We attribute the fact that we have successfully been able to make our uniform products in Georgia to the help that Quick Start has given us in making these recruiting and sales movies.”

Morgan credits the support and cooperation of the company itself for making the video such a success. “You can’t do it without help from the company,” Morgan says.

Quick Start’s award-winning video Welcome to Riverside won another
prestigious award, the 2003 Silver Telly. Pictured above with the awards are,
from left, producer Ned Morgan; Jerry Vereen, Riverside Manufacturing president
and CEO; and Dr. Kenneth Breeden, DTAE commissioner.

Employment Boon to Waycross

The Simmons Company, the second largest bedding manufacturer in the country, recently broke ground in Waycross for a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will bring more than 225 jobs to the area.

When fully operational, the new facility is expected to produce more than 2,500 mattresses a day, according to Charlie Eitel, Simmons Company chairman. Only three Simmons employees will transfer to the Waycross plant. The remainder of the positions will be filled with Georgians, who will be trained by Georgia Quick Start and Okefenokee Technical College.

Attending the Simmons Company groundbreaking are, from left, Glen Cornell, Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism commissioner; Mike Boggs, state representative; Charlie Eitel, Simmons Company chairman; and Ron Russell, Quick Start training coordinator.

Taking Aim at Economic
Development in Columbus

Sterling, Va.-based Heckler & Koch Inc., the U.S. affiliate of German gun maker Heckler & Koch GmbH, broke ground in Columbus last fall for a 75,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility that will create 200 new jobs. The company will manufacture firearms for the U.S. military, law enforcement and commercial markets at the new facility, which is expected to be completed in late 2004. Quick Start will provide the new employees training in cold hammer forging of gun barrels, advanced polymer molding and computerized machine tooling.

For a reprint of the original article
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, click here.