Phil Brown, left, and Karen Schuyler chat inside the ICL Performance Products plant in North Lawrence. Schuyler is being promoted to a new job with the company; Brown is being promoted to manager at the North Lawrence plant, which develops, manufactures and markets fertilizers, industrial products, metallurgy and performance products.

A chemicals plant at the edge of North Lawrence is continuing to hire employees, add new customers and push for expanding its product offerings.

And now it’s happening under new leadership, with some oversight help from a familiar face.

The ICL Performance Products plant, 440 N. Ninth St., now falls under the leadership of Phil Brown, recently promoted to plant manager after serving as phosphate business manager for nearly a year.

Brown takes over for Karen Schuyler, who was promoted earlier this year to serve in a new post for ICL: director of logistics. Schuyler had been plant manager in Lawrence since 1998, back when it was owned by FMC Corp., then Astaris and then, by the end of 2005, Israel-based ICL.

During Schuyler’s tenure, the plant has built on its stable of core products:

¢ Phosphates, which are added to toothpaste, french fries, shampoo and other products.

¢ Phosphoric acid, which puts the zing in sodas and increasingly is used in the etching of semiconductors and flat-panel displays for electronics – among them computer monitors, televisions, wireless phones and PDAs.

Just last year the plant received a $4 million upgrade: construction of a facility to produce and package ultra-pure phosphoric acid, the kind necessary to manufacture many integrated circuits, computer chips, flat-panel monitors and other similar electronics necessities.

Representatives from Fujifilm Electronic Materials were on site Tuesday to see the operation, check out its performance and help determine whether to join the plant’s customer list, which already includes a number of industry powerhouses.

“There’s been a lot of change in the plant over the past 10 years,” said Schuyler, who maintains an office at the plant, and splits time between Lawrence and St. Louis. “I’m proud of the accomplishments and how far we’ve come.”

In her new job, Schuyler oversees deliveries of all raw materials coming into ICL’s plants in North America and then shipments of all products heading out of the plants. The responsibilities span shipping, trucking, rail deliveries and other processes that can have a major effect on a job’s efficiency.

Schuyler said such issues were “frustrating” for her as plant manager because the site’s location in the middle of America often added expenses to the plant’s freight costs. It also may have contributed to the plant not winning out for potential upgrades and new product options.

“Some decisions to make products didn’t go in Lawrence’s favor because of freight costs,” said Schuyler, who knows a thing or two about transportation costs now that she’s driving a company car between Lawrence and St. Louis. “I have some motivation for just looking at how we can creatively come up with some other options to make sure that we lower the cost of freight in and out of the Lawrence plant.”

ICL is looking into expanding some of the plant’s existing manufacturing operations, Schuyler said. The plant has 171 employees, up by 10 from a year ago.

Brown, who’s been in the chemicals business for 16 years, said he was pleased to be able to manage an operation run by dedicated employees and led by a growth-minded company.

He considers the plant to be a “center of excellence” for ICL in North America, and said he was looking forward to that status continuing for years to come.