AFG changing name to AGC

Glass maker and major local employer AFG is becoming AGC.

AFG Glass, chartered as AFG Industries Inc., is changing its name to AGC Flat Glass North America, a company official has confirmed.

The official said the renaming of AFG, which operates plants in Kingsport and Hawkins County, will unify the parent company´s glass operations worldwide. It is to be complete in September, nine months after AFG´s corporate headquarters moved from Kingsport to Atlanta. "AFG Glass will be changing the company name to AGC Flat Glass North America," Mark Montgomery, director of marketing for AFG Glass, wrote in response to e-mail questions. "The name and logo change is in response to globally unify Asahi Glass Co. Ltd."

AGC stands for Asahi Glass Co. The new name will unify its Asahi operations in Asia, Brussels, Belgium-based Glaverbel operations in Europe, and AFG operations in North America, Montgomery said. "Each AFG facility will be changing company signs over the next three (to) four months," Montgomery wrote. "The global branding strategy is to be completed by September - in conjunction with Asahi´s 100th anniversary."

AFG is the second-largest float glass manufacturer in North America and employs 4,700 people across the country, including 1,200 at its facilities in Kingsport, the Blue Ridge Plant, and Hawkins County, the Greenland Plant near Surgoinsville. AFG President and Chief Executive Officer Brad Kitterman, who next month will mark his first year with AFG, last year decided to move the corporate headquarters to Atlanta effective Jan. 1, although the AFG Web site as of Thursday evening still listed Kingsport as AFG corporate headquarters.

Kitterman´s hometown is Atlanta, but he said the move of about 30 executives from Kingsport to Atlanta was made because the executive offices needed to be separate from the daily activities of the company. AFG traces its roots in Kingsport back to the 1920s. It became AFG Industries Inc. in 1978, when R.D. Hubbard merged Fourco Glass and ASG.