Wearnes Plans Irvine Plant, Just Weeks After 190 Layoffs

Wearnes Hollingsworth Corp., a subsidiary of Singapore-based Wearnes Technology Corp., will open a manufacturing facility here next month, company officials said Thursday.

Two months ago another Wearnes unit, Interconnection Products Inc., a manufacturer of electronic connector devices for the aerospace and computer industries, abruptly shut its Santa Ana plant and laid off 190 employees.

Wearnes Hollingsworth President Alan S. Trombly said the Irvine plant will manufacture products similar to those made by IPI. Although most of the 19 people the firm has hired for the new Irvine operation are former IPI workers, he stressed that his company is unrelated to IPI.

“We’re starting from scratch,” he said.

The plant, in the Irvine Spectrum, will be the new headquarters for the company, which also operates a 194-employee facility in Pompano Beach, Fla. Trombly, a former IPI vice president of sales and marketing, will oversee both operations from his Irvine office.

Trombly said he was asked by a Wearnes Technology executive in Singapore to head the Wearnes Hollingsworth operation for one week after the Aug. 10 shutdown.

He would not comment on disputes between Wearnes Technology and former IPI employees, who say they are owed severance pay, or on Wearnes Technology’s quarrels with Chase Manhattan Bank, which ceased funding IPI’s operation in August and is trying to seize IPI assets.