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The Rich Get Richer
PerkinElmer latest to call Shelton home
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Business New Haven
2/18/2002
By: Linda G. Mele
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SHELTON - PerkinElmer Inc. was originally founded by Richard Perkin and Charles Elmer in 1937 as an optics design and consulting business.
The partners had a small office in Manhattan, but within a year the business expanded and the company began fabricating precision optical components.
By the end of the 1980s, company sales finally exceeded $1 billion annually. In 1987, it celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Through the years, the company grew from a small partnership into the $550 million global conglomerate it is today, shipping to customers in 129 countries and trading on the NYSE as PKI, according to president Stephen DeFalco.
The company's analytical instrument division headquarters moved from Norwalk to Shelton last June and now occupies 245,000 square feet in the old Phillips Medical building, and employs 600 people at the 710 Bridgeport Avenue location.
“Today, PerkinElmer Instruments continues to bring revolutionary advancements to the analytical instrumentation industry, creating application-specific solutions for the pharmaceutical, food and beverage, environmental, chemical and semiconductor markets,” PKI officials crow.
More to the point, this is the kind of business Shelton officials want to attract to this town of only 30.56 square miles, according to Mayor Mark Lauretti.
Lauretti said that the city's hands-on approach to economic development has helped generate more than 7,500 jobs and increase the grand list from $2.02 billion in 1993 to $2.49 billion in 2000.
“Since 1991, at least 1,500 businesses [of all sizes] have opened in Shelton,” Lauretti explains. “We've posted a 50-percent gain in the grand list and our office vacancy rate has dropped from 28.2 percent to 3.4 percent.”
The current mill rate of 25.59 mills is based on a taxable grand list of $2,490,750,230, according to the Shelton tax collector's office.
According to the Valley Chamber of Commerce, Shelton is experiencing “spectacular” growth as companies migrate here from New York, New Jersey and southwestern Fairfield County.
PerkinElmer joined major employers in the city such as American Skandia, Data Switch Corp., Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart. According to the VCC, this wave of corporate immigration has helped Shelton become “one of Connecticut's fastest growing communities.”
Now that his company is settled in, DeFalco says PerkinElmer “is thrilled to be in Shelton.”
Board of Aldermen chairman John Anglace says the city's tremendous growth is also the result of the efforts of VCC president and CEO William Purcell. “He's Shelton's chief cheerleader,” Anglace says.
While city officials are proud of what's already been accomplished, they know they are still facing significant challenges, including road improvements, open space acquisition, downtown restoration and anti-blight elimination efforts.
Town officials say Shelton needs to keep recruiting new businesses and retaining the old ones so taxes are not burdensome for its residents while balancing the needs of a vibrant, bustling city with those of the owners of nearly 2,000 acres of working farms.
As Anglace says of PerkinElmer, “It's always exciting to welcome a new neighbor to the neighborhood.”
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