Fast-growing Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, a Pullman, Wash., electronics manufacturer, already is planning to expand a manufacturing plant it opened just five months ago.


Schweitzer Engineering will add at least 20,000 square feet of floor space, and possibly much more, to its newest, 65,000-square-foot plant at the industrial park it occupies in Pullman, says company spokeswoman Susan Fagan. Construction of the addition is imminent, and it should be ready for use by September 2001, Fagan says.


KIP Development & Construction, of Pullman, will build the addition, she says. KIP also constructed the $5 million manufacturing plant, which opened in April. That plant was the fifth building constructed at Schweitzer Engineerings 40-acre campus within the Port of Whitman Countys industrial park in Pullman.


We debated as to whether we were going to build a completely new building or whether well add on to our manufacturing building that just opened. We made the determination that it would be more efficient to add on to our new manufacturing building, she says.


Fagan says Schweitzer Engineering wants to use the additional space to expand manufacturing to address new and existing markets.


The company, which makes and sells digital protective relays and related devices for the electric-power industry worldwide, expects to add at least 20 jobs as a result of the expansion, she says.


Schweitzer Engineering currently employs 510 people in Pullman, and has another 40 jobs waiting to be filled, Fagan says. The company has added 150 jobs so far this year, she says.


Schweitzer Engineering was founded in 1982 by its current president, Ed Schweitzer, and his wife, Mary.