Trimak Building Systems Moves Headquarters to Lakeland, Adds 20 Jobs in a Month

Trimak Building Systems Inc. has finished moving its national headquarters and manufacturing operations to a new $45 million facility at 4350 County Line Road near Lakeland Linder International Airport, and the company is already hiring. President Kenny McIntosh says Trimak has brought on 18 to 20 new employees in the past month alone, pushing its workforce to about 220, with dozens more openings for engineers, detailers and machine operators expected in the coming months.

For a city that spent years chasing manufacturing investment near its airport corridor, the move lands as one of the bigger wins yet. Trimak is one of the largest metal building construction companies in the country. It builds roughly 250 buildings a year and ranked second nationally among metal building erectors by tonnage in 2025, working 18,500 tons of steel across crews in 15 states.

The incentive deal behind it

The relocation is tied directly to money from Lakeland taxpayers, though only if the company delivers. In February, the Lakeland City Commission approved a $400,000 economic incentive package for Trimak, contingent on the company creating 50 new jobs at the Lakeland site paying an average of at least $100,000 a year. Trimak received its certificate of occupancy on Aug. 17, which clears the way for it to request the money.

The company plans to put the funds toward water impact fees and the cost of underground electrical work and right-of-way construction, the kind of infrastructure costs that come with standing up a new plant from scratch.

McIntosh, who founded the business, says the site gives Trimak room it never had before. Eight additional heavy custom machines are headed to the new plant, and he says the location near the airport was a deliberate choice. Trimak builds aircraft hangars among its projects, and its crews travel constantly to jobs in other states.

From Plant City to a national player

McIntosh's path to Lakeland runs through Plant City and Mulberry. He started Certified Industrial Maintenance in Plant City in 2004 and moved it to Mulberry three years later. An Ohio company that had built for Walt Disney World later approached him for engineering help, and by the time he sold that business in 2019, he had built a full-service fabrication shop with around 100 workers.

He kept the pre-engineered metal building division and turned it into Trimak, relocating to a former contractor site in Plant City. When COVID-era supply shortages hit, Trimak started making its own steel trim and wall panels rather than wait on outside suppliers, a shift McIntosh says exposed a gap in the market the company has been filling ever since.

Trimak's portfolio now includes about two million square feet of construction at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, along with gymnasiums, churches, airplane hangars and more than 3,000 Dollar General stores. The company is also working to meet Miami-Dade County's building code, among the toughest in the country, which McIntosh says would let Trimak build almost anywhere.

Current job openings are posted on Indeed, and McIntosh says the company plans to add a jobs page to its own website. He has not given a specific hiring target beyond "dozens" of positions, some of which require specialized equipment certification that Trimak and its partners can provide training for.

Want to talk about what this means for Lakeland's job market? Head to Lakeland Community Website and join the conversation in our Community Forum. For more coverage of local growth and hiring, visit our business and business development sections.

Header photo: Netweave / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)