It's not often that a service company evolves into a manufacturing company. Think of the computer industry. IBM, which once was synomous with "computer," is an information services company, having sold its PC manufacturing business long ago.
But then along comes a company like PRWT Services Inc., the Center City provider of business services, that is suddenly finding itself making bulk chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry.
This morning, the management of the African-American-owned company was celebrating its purchase of a former Merck & Co. Inc. factory in the central Pennsylvania town of Riverside, which is indeed on the side of the Susquehanna River across from Danville. Armed with a five-year supply contract from Merck, PRWT is now a manufacturer and has jumped into the life-sciences business with both feet.
Harold Epps, who was promoted to PRWT's president as of today, said this one acquisition and contract effectively quadruples the revenue base of the 20-year-old company. It is in negotiations with St. Louis-based Sigma-Aldrich for another contract that would expand those revenues even more, he said.
After a news conference, PRWT co-founder and chairman Willie Johnson would only describe the discussion with publicly held Sigma-Aldrich as "embryonic."
It took PRWT two years to negotiate the deal to acquire the Riverside factory from Merck, which has been outsourcing some of its pharmaceutical manufacturing in a cost-cutting move. PRWT has plans to expand and diversify the operation there, but wasn't ready to do that on a day when its employees were ready to celebrate how far the company has come.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was visibly pleased to be celebrating the growth of PRWT, which has 230 employees in the city and a total of 1,650 nationwide. Celebrating, but not taking credit for what Johnson, Epps and the rest of PRWT have embarked on. For Nutter, the expansion of this African-American-owned business was simply "a wonderful moment in Philadelphia."
