The Sylvania brand celebrated 125 years of bringing light into the world with a Sept. 24 event at its plant in Hillsborough.
The plant on West Main Street, which produces automotive lighting products for original equipment manufacturers and the aftermarket, is the last major automotive aftermarket lighting plant in the country, according to the company, which chose the occasion to unveil its latest product line: high-power LED lights for off-road vehicles.
Mark Savoy, left, and Greg Bibbo, who are, respectively the CEO and sales director at Sylvania in Hillsborough, pose for a photo on Sept. 24 with a Jeep fitted with the company’s new line of off-road LED lights. (Photo by John Koziol)
Sylvania has been operating in Hillsborough since the 1950s. In 1993, OSRAM, based in Germany, became its parent company when it bought Sylvania’s lighting division.
The south parking lot at Sylvania, which employs more than 400 people here, featured a display of vehicles from the early 20th century to the present day that exemplified the company’s many lighting achievement. Next to a Ford F150 that is currently used by the Hillsborough Fire Department was an orange Jeep, whose front bristled with LED lights.
Greg Bibbo, Sylvania’s senior director of sales and marketing, estimated that the lights on the Jeep are capable of giving off 50,000 lumens, or about 50 times that of a typical headlight.
During a telephone interview on Sept. 23, Bibbo and Sylvania U.S. CEO Mark Savoy spoke about what has made the brand successful in its first century and a quarter and about the next 125 years to come.
“How did we get to 125 years?” Savoy said. “It was two things we keep coming back to; the people that we have and always trying to innovate.” He said the company was “unique in our field in that we have a U.S. manufacturing footprint” and a strong connection to consumers through retailers such as AutoZone and others.
“If you need a replacement bulb for your vehicle, we have a majority share of the retail space, “said Bibbo, explaining that with vehicles, “lights and wipers are things people feel comfortable doing themselves.”
Sylvania runs three shifts at its Hillsboro plant, which is also the company’s U.S. headquarters and houses its engineering, sales and customer service departments.
“New Hampshire is a very good place to do business,” Savoy said. “We’ve tended to be the big employer in a small town.” Both he and Bibbo have worked at Sylvania for 30-plus years while some employees have been there for 40 years or more.
Bibbo pointed out the obvious fact that “You’re always going to have lights on vehicles” but noted that the lighting landscape “is slowly changing over time” from incandescent bulbs to LEDs.
In 2023, Sylvania brought its packaging operations in house, which allowed the company to add 100 jobs in New Hampshire over the past three-four years, Savoy said. The company is hiring and currently has more than 40 openings.
Savoy acknowledged, that energy costs are a challenge for Osram Sylvania and that, overall, it takes “grit and authenticity.”
“To make a commodity in a high-wage country isn’t easy,” he said.
Tariffs, Savoy noted, “have been chaotic for us” because Sylvania manufactures products not just in Hillsborough, but throughout the world.
Nonetheless, Sylvania is in a good place, Savoy said.
“The really important thing for us is how proud we are of 125 years of the brand,” he said, which was founded in 1901 in Massachusetts and is now owned by a German conglomerate that is publicly traded on the Swiss Stock Exchange.
A day later, at the employee appreciation day that was attended by Gov. Kelly Ayotte and District 2 U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Savoy said Sylvania was recognizing “a landmark milestone” as the “only major operating aftermarket automotive light manufacturer” in America.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte and Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander look on as Mark Savoy, CEO of Sylvania in Hillsborough, speaks on Sept. 24 during the company’s employee-appreciation luncheon where Osram Sylvania celebrated 125 year of manufacturing and also did a soft launch of its new line of off-road LED lighting products. (Photo by John Koziol)
Ayotte recalled that prior to Sept. 24, the last time she was at Sylvania was when she was a U.S. senator and the company rolled out the LED-equipped Ford F150.
“This place is awesome,” Ayotte declared, adding that what is made at Sylvania is “so important” to so many end users.
“You’re the ones who make this happen,” she told employees.
Goodlander concurred, citing both Franklin Pierce, who, she noted, was a son of Hillsborough, and Ronald Reagan, in their opinions that the people involved in an endeavor make it successful.
Hillsborough Selectman James Bailey III called Sylvania “the diamond of the community” and agreed that what the company pays in local taxes represents “a big chunk” of the municipal budget.
“I’ve been here for 44 years,” he said, and it (Sylvania) has always been a mainstay,” Bailey said. “Today is a happy day for the town.”
This year’s Advanced Manufacturing and High Technology Summit kicked off with a topic universal to all employers: how to build the workforce of tomorrow. The 24th annual event organized by the New Hampshire Manufacturing Extension Partnership on Oct. 9 featured a keynote panel discussion featuring representatives from the state’s university and community college systems.
The Sylvania brand celebrated 125 years of bringing light into the world with a Sept. 24 event at its plant in Hillsborough. The plant on West Main Street, which produces automotive lighting products for original equipment manufacturers and the aftermarket, is the last major automotive aftermarket lighting plant in the country.
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