IC Corporation
IC Corporation (IC Bus) is the largest manufacturer of school buses in the United States. The company is headquartered in Warrenville, Illinois, and has a substantial manufacturing facility in Conway, Arkansas. The initials in the name stand for "Integrated Coach," meaning the manufacturer makes its own bus bodies, chasses, and engines. The corporation is a subsidiary of the multinational company Navistar.
Conway plant workers currently make final assembly of school and prison buses. IC is one of the two largest manufacturers in the city, the other being Virco.
Company History
IC Corp was established in 2002, but has a heritage extending back to the Ward Body Works founded by Conway resident D. H. "Dave" Ward in 1933. Ward created the company after lowering the wooden roof of a school bus used by the Southside School District located north of Conway. He soon began manufacturing all metal buses. In the 1960s the company began an innovative program of computer-aided manufacturing with IBM 360s. A second plant opened in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania failed in 1975. The company, then known as Ward School Bus Manufacturing, went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1979.
With the assistance of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton the assets of the company were purchased by an investment group and reorganized into the American Transportation Corporation (AmTran). The Harmon brothers purchased a controlling stake in the company in 1983. A one-third share of the company was acquired by Navistar in 1991, with an option to purchase the rest by 1995. The company became a wholly-owned subsidiary in 1995. Buses continued to bear the "Ward" name until 1992, and then were labeled "AmTran" and now as "International" or "IC" made. A Tulsa, Oklahoma, IC bus manufacturing plant came on stream in 1999.
References
- Toby Manthey, "Maker of School Buses Lays Off 170 in Conway," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 27, 2009.
