Congressman Lee Terry

If all goes to plan, in five years CLAAS will double its manufacturing capacity and significantly ramp up hiring at its Sarpy County manufacturing facility.

The German company, which made the Omaha area its North American headquarters in 1999, has been growing over the last half-decade by about 20 percent annually, said North American President Leif Magnusson, on the strength of the agricultural sector in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

When the company started in La Vista, it had 40 employees. Now it has 150, with 100 of them working in the massive factory, building combines that are then sent into the fields of the Midlands and around the world to harvest grains. Many of the company's suppliers in Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas have added jobs, too.

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