Thomas Built Buses expands operations as demand grows

A Triad manufacturer is growing its operations. Thomas Built Buses recently announced an expansion at its High Point facility.

The company is adding a new production shift at the Saf-T-Liner C2 plant in High Point manufacturing traditional and electric school buses. The change will mean hiring 280 new employees. Those positions include assembly technicians, machine operators and welders.

Mario DiFoggio is the Marketing and Communications Manager with the company. He says pent up demand from the pandemic is driving more interest in their products and an increase in orders for electric buses is expected due to the federal Clean School Bus Program.

“Those funds available, the rebates have not been given out by the federal government as of yet, but they will start in earnest over the next couple of months, so when we see that we will start to see more and more districts across the United States apply for that funding and ultimately purchase our products, so we have to ramp up for that.”

Thomas Built Buses introduced its first fully electric school bus in 2017.

The company has called High Point home for more than 100 years and currently employs more than 1,600 people. 

An in-person job fair for the new positions will take place on June 4 at the company's headquarters on Courtesy Road.

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