United Plate Glass opens new plant in Lincoln County; third in U.S.

The glass fabricating company is family owned and operated; founded in the 1980’s by William Cully.

Starting out as a small local glass distributor, UPG continually grew into a multifaceted, well diverse glass fabricator. During this decade, Bill’s sons, Mike & Bart Cully along with Mike’s wife Joyce took active roles in the progress of their family business. By the early 90’s UPG moved from their 9,000 square foot building in downtown Butler, PA to a 22,000 square foot building a few blocks away. In the year 2001 they opened a new 60,000 square foot building in the outer perimeter of Butler and expanded their fabrications to include a tempering furnace. In 2004 a second 40,000 square foot plant was erected and included another tempering furnace, a state of the art super spacer insulated line, and a ceramic frit coating line. Along with expanding their fabrication processes, their service area was increasingly growing.

Servicing Western and Central Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia, South Western New York, and parts of Maryland, United Plate Glass decided to expand in another fast growing region, Charlotte, NC. Therefore, the search was on to locate a home for their third plant. Needing room for potential growth, easy accessibility, and a convenient location to service a wide area, it would not be an easy task.

Mike and Joyce toured many industrial parks around the increasingly growing Charlotte area, but could not find one that beat or paralleled the attractiveness, central location and accessibility of the Lincoln County Industrial Park off of Business 321. Once they met with Barry Matherly and other members of the Lincoln Economic Development Association, they knew they had made the right decision in making a home for their plant in Lincoln County.

With the completion of their 55,000 square foot building in Lincolnton, NC in 2008, UPG adds a third tempering furnace, insulating line, flat polishing and hole drilling machine to their multitude of glass fabrication abilities. United Plate Glass is eager to fill a niche for the glass industry in the surrounding area.

“The United Plate Glass family would like to thank LEDA for the enormous support they have offered during the entire process. UPG is looking forward to many years of prosperity in Lincoln County.” says, Mike Cully with United Plate Glass

Tom Anderson, chair of the Lincoln County Commissioners, “We are pleased that United Plate Glass has chosen Lincoln County for their new facility and appreciate the opportunity this new manufacturing facility will offer the citizens of Lincoln County for employment. We encourage the owners to participate in the various activities to be found in Lincoln County on both the personal and professional level. We wish United Plate Glass great success with this new facility and look forward to a long and rewarding relationship between United Plate Glass, the County, its citizens and the business community.”

“It’s exciting to know that Lincoln County has what it takes in order to attract companies such as United Plate Glass who are looking to expand their business in the southeast. We are proud to have United Plate Glass join the other industries within the Lincoln County Industrial Park and look forward to watching their company prosper in Lincoln County.” says, Pete Acker, chair of the Lincoln Economic Development Association.

During the construction of the 55,000 square-foot design-build glass tempering manufacturing /distribution center, United Plate Glass worked closely with Edifice, the contractor, to supply the glass and related items to one of their concurrent construction clients in the area. Jeff Humbert, senior project manger for Edifice Inc., “Building United Plate Glass has been a rewarding experience for us as a contractor. In addition to truly enjoying working with the owner and welcoming such a quality manufacturing company to the area – we had the opportunity to assist in the facilitation of the new local relationship.”