Campos at helm of CSL

BOURBONNAIS TOWNSHIP – If everything works out as Jose Campos has it designed in his mind, he will become very familiar with all parts of Kankakee County.

The newest CSL Behring site vice president for the Bourbonnais Township manufacturing plant, which is Kankakee County’s largest manufacturing plant with about 1,500 employees, wants to become a fixture here.

Campos, 60, who recently settled into his Manteno residence, along with his wife, Maria, is hoping for an extended stay. And now as empty nesters, he envisions becoming very involved within Kankakee County, outside of his work.

His vision is very much focused on leading the plant located on 138 acres at the southwest section of the county’s most heavily-traveled intersection of Armour Road and Illinois Route 50.

To say he has much on his shoulders would be an understatement.

And for a man who only came to know Kankakee County upon his interviews as the replacement for Abner Garcia-Delgado, who served as the site leader for about two years and only recently moved on from CSL, Campos has much to learn and much to do.

Campos, armed with a sharp Puerto Rican accent, has been at the helm since April 1. Like most any new leader, Campos has been busy learning names and the roles those people perform.

He is learning the sizable plant and how it functions.

And he is learning about the nation’s Midwest at the same time.

While born and raised in Puerto Rico, Campos spent extensive time in eastern United States, particularly New Jersey, where he worked with Pfizer Pharmaceutical and then Viatris Inc., another pharmaceutical and health care corporation. Now, Campos is seeing major agriculture up close and personal for the first time.

He admitted prior to the start of the October 2024 interview process with CSL, he did not have vast knowledge of the region, nor of CSL.

“But when I started looking at CSL, it resonated a lot with me,” he said. “The bio-tech section is new to me, but it represented a new challenge for myself.”

And, he said, he would like to end the recent trend of plant leadership changes at the Bourbonnais Township site.

“I came here to stay,” he said.

He describes himself as patient, focused and respectful. He said he always has an ear for what insight others can bring to the table.

His way is not the only way.

“This is a new challenge for myself,” he said before adding his time at his previous stop made him feel there were others hills to climb.

Campos explained while he considers himself a loyal person and his plan had been to retire from Pfizer, sometimes the path becomes diverted.

“It was time to look for other challenges. We said, ‘Let’s go for it,’ ” he said.

‘New challenge’

And while retirement may be in view six or seven years from now, it isn’t something he pays much attention to at this point in his career. He said he wants to retire in the United States as both of this daughters, Alexandra, 26, and Sabriena, 23, are making this country their home.

“It’s a new challenge, a new company,” he said.

Having earned a chemical engineering degree from the University of Puerto Rico, he later earned a master of business degree from the University of Phoenix in Arizona.

While he has been around the world, he has only recently experienced his first trip to Chicago. He said the experience went well.

He is replacing a pair of vice presidents who had relatively short CSL tenures. Garcia-Delgado’s tenure was about two years. He followed Jose Gonzalez, who had been site vice president for about three years, beginning in September 2019.

Known in CSL circles as the Kankakee plant, the Melbourne, Australian-based company is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of plasma-derived medications. The company’s biotherapies treat a variety of disorders, including hemophilia and hereditary angioedema.

The Bourbonnais Township plant is one of four key manufacturing sites under the CSL umbrella throughout the world, the others being Broadmeadows, Australia; Marburg, Germany; and Bern, Switzerland.

Kankakee is a site which Campos believes has even more potential than already on display. When expansion opportunities come up for consideration, he wants the Kankakee plant to be front and center. He wants even more activity at the already busy site which rests just outside of the Bradley and Bourbonnais village limits.

Recent extensive utility upgrades to the site would appear to open the door for more potential development.

He wants to help empower this region by empowering the CSL workforce.

“I love to listen to folks, to get their perspective,” Campos said. “I don’t jump to any conclusions. I want to listen to people. I want to sit down with many folks.”