ROME — To celebrate its 40th birthday, Kris-Tech Wire, of Rome, has donated $500,000 toward construction of the new YMCA. Company officials presented the check at a ceremony at Kris-Tech on Otis Street on Wednesday, Aug. 14 — the anniversary of the company’s founding.
“We’re just really honored to be in a position to be able to donate and support our community,” said Graham Brodock, president and CEO of Kris-Tech. “Everybody here, every team member at Kris-Tech, is a part of this gift and it wouldn’t happen without them. So it’s really on behalf of our people to our community, in which so many of our people live with their families, with their friends, with their community members.
” YMCA update According to YMCA CEO Hank Leo, the new building was first announced in 2018 at a potential cost of $16 million, only for it to be waylaid by the COVID-19 pandemic shortly thereafter. Leo said the YMCA sustained a huge blow in membership, losing “more than half.” “So the approach we took was to recover our membership first, to make sure that we had a stable ground to be on, and knowing that a move to a new location — and specifically where this location is — would be a huge help,” Leo explained.
They’re looking to build the new YMCA on a 7.1-acre empty lot on upper Floyd Avenue, across from Mohawk Valley Community College. The city of Rome has already begun building the new road that will access the Y.
Leo said they have continued to take in donations and rebuild the pledges that were promised from before the pandemic, as well as work to bring down the costs. “If all goes well, we’re going to start this fall,” Leo stated. “The generosity of this company (Kris-Tech) has been phenomenal because it gets us back in the swing of getting closer and closer to our goal, so that we can build this beautiful, new Y.
” Kris-Tech at 40 Founded in 1984 by twin brothers Gerry and Glenn Brodock, Kris-Tech is a leading national wire manufacturing company that produces copper wire and insulated copper wire. They are headquartered on the Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome, with a second location in Houston to handle business in the Midwest and on the West Coast. They have 168 total employees, including President and CEO Graham Brodock, the grandson and grand-nephew of the founders, officials said.
“We try to donate to as many local charities and companies as we can,” said Wendy Calabrese, director of employee engagement. She said about 54 Kris-Tech employees are members of the YMCA, including the owner, and the YMCA helps take care of their employee health, childcare and more. “The Y covers all of that,” Calabrese explained.
“We’re big on employee wellbeing.” Brodock, the CEO, called the YMCA a “cornerstone organization for us here in Rome.” In choosing the YMCA for this donation, he said, “Really it was a time of opportunity.
They had a large project that was coming online. It’s something that I got really excited about, continue to be really excited about, very bullish about, and it’s something that will really help invigorate an already vibrant and growing community here in Rome.”.
