Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor:

The purpose of this letter is two fold. First and foremost, I personally want to thank the people of Millen for the support that was afforded to us in the 17 years we were manufacturing windows in Millen. I want to make it perfectly clear that every person we dealt with from our first visit in late 1989 until now has given us 100 percent of their support. This support included local officials, county officials and state officials where applicable.

The decision to close the Millen plant was made much harder because of the support we had always received. The primary and only reason Millen was picked is because of the current market conditions in the housing industry in general, and in particular, the Florida market. Everyone watching the news should be well aware of the fact that the housing industry has entered a downturn equal to the Great Depression of the 1930's. I say again it was not easy for me to approve the closing of Millen when I think back to our first summer there trying to get the plant organized.

The second reason for this letter is to reassure the fine people of Millen that we have no plans to close our aluminum extrusion plant at this time. In fact, we recently hired two more sales people to promote our products in the southeastern part of the country. Obviously, the immediate effect of closing the window plant does slow down the extrusion plant. Our goal is to find and sell the capacity to other companies. Our team is working diligently to accomplish this.

We realize that no one benefits from a plant closing and no company can grow by closing plants. However, this is one of those times that we have to take some steps backwards in order to assure our future and for that, I am truly sorry we felt we had to do this.

Thank you,

Pete DeSoto MI Home Products Chief Executive Officer