Westbrook manufacturer announces free health insurance for employees [The Day, New London, Conn.]

Jan. 10--WESTBROOK -- The Lee Co., a 75-year-old manufacturer of precision fluid-control products plugs, valves, nozzles and filters used in the aerospace, automotive, defense, medical and power-generation industries may have hit on a way to attract the many new workers it needs while keeping the ones it has happy.

It's paying their monthly health insurance premiums.

The company went public Tuesday with what it called an "unprecedented new health care benefit" for its 1,100 global employees, more than 1,000 of whom work at company facilities here and in Essex. Many live in southeastern Connecticut.

As of Jan. 1, the company's employees no longer have to pay monthly premiums for the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage the company provides, Bill Lee, the company's chairman, president and chief executive officer, announced at a press conference attended by state and local officials.

"This is an extremely proud day for The Lee Company," said Lee, a Connecticut College graduate whose father, Leighton Lee II, founded the company in 1948. "We are thrilled to be able to provide this benefit to help ease the burden on employees and their families."

Employees still are responsible for the Anthem Century Preferred health plan's "modest" co-pays and deductibles. The plan's level of coverage hasn't changed.

Lee declined to say how much the largesse would cost the company, but according to a study the company cited in a press release, the average annual employee contribution for family coverage in Connecticut exceeds $6,000. The study was done by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Chris DiPentima, president and chief executive officer of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, a trade group, applauded The Lee Co. for extending a helping hand to employees amid a challenging economic climate that includes record inflation and rising interest rates.

Connecticut faces a "workforce crisis," DiPentima said. "If every unemployed person in Connecticut had a job, there still would be 40,000 openings."

Paul Lavoie, the state's chief manufacturing officer, said Connecticut needs more employers to find ways to attract people to the state.

"We need people," he said.

Marietta Lee, the company's chief operating officer, general counsel and corporate secretary, said the company hired more people last year than in any year in its history and expects to hire even more this year. She said it launched a training school that new employees attend several times a week "while they're on the clock." More than 100 employees have graduated from the program and another 80 currently are enrolled in it, she said.

Bill Lee, Marietta's uncle, said the company has invested $200 million in facilities, machinery and equipment in the last decade. He said it's also invested in its workforce, providing a profit-sharing plan entirely funded by the company, performance bonuses, a tuition-reimbursement program and a scholarship fund.

Several workers were made available to reporters at the press conference, including Mark Wolf, a manufacturing supervisor in his 28th year with the company. He recalled paying a $30 co-pay when his wife was hospitalized during her first pregnancy in 2000. His son, born in 2001, developed complications that necessitated weeks of treatment that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.

"That $30 was all I ever paid," Wolf said.

Karlye DeGenaro of Branford, an automated machine operator, started with the company a couple of years ago as a temporary employee at the Essex facility. She said employees were informed of the health care benefit at a meeting last month.

"For most people, it's not a lot," she said of the monthly insurance premium they no longer have to pay. "But every little bit helps."

Jeff Dickey of Westbrook, executive vice president of hydraulics, has been with the company for 40 years. He said his insurance premium didn't change in that time and that he wasn't sure the announcement it was being eliminated would spur much of a reaction at the December meeting.

"Basically, the place went nuts," he said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

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