Pa. remodeling company to hire 100 on LI
Cousins Jeff Kaliner, left, and Adam Kaliner are expanding Power Home Remodeling Group of Chester, Pa., with an office in Melville. (April 2011) Credit: Sabina Louise Pierce
A Pennsylvania company that specializes in making homes green is scheduled to be on Long Island on Friday to announce it is bringing 100 jobs here this year and possibly another 100 in 2012.
Power Home Remodeling of Chester, Pa., plans to hold a news conference at offices it has rented in Melville to announce the new jobs and a $10,000 grant to YouthBuild Long Island, a United Way community development and green-job training program for at-risk youth.
About 50 of those 100 jobs are already here, with the hiring having come in February, when Power Home quietly opened the Melville office. The company plans a "grand opening" Friday, to be attended by political and business figures. Another 50 jobs -- sales people and installers -- are to be added later this year, said company chief executive and founder Jeff Kaliner. In 16 to 18 months, Kaliner said, the company may have as many as 200 employees on the Island.
"We were looking for established communities" to expand to, said Kaliner, who started the company in 1992 with his cousin, Adam Kaliner. The Kaliners liked Long Island's makeup. "It has not necessarily old homes, but not a lot of new construction." Those are the homes, he said, that owners repair and where they look to save on energy costs.
The privately held Power Home has about 900 employees, and sales last year were about $132 million, up from about $12 million over a decade ago.
Neither Kaliner was particularly green at the beginning. They were looking to start a profitable company. With federal stimulus money available for green projects, homeowners looking to save energy, and a crop of out-of-work people to choose from, green became the way to go, Jeff Kaliner said.
Local economist Pearl Kamer said that while the number of jobs may be small relative to the Island's 1.1 million workforce, they are nonetheless welcome. "It's been a slow jobs recovery," Kamer said. "That's why we're grateful for any jobs we can get."
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