From its base in Clinton Township, Michigan, Xcentric Mold and Engineering provides in-house custom injection molding, CNC machining, and 3D printing services for crafting parts from plastics and metals. Its headquarters is supported by a twin manufacturing location in Shelby Township, Michigan, and both facilities are near Detroit for easy access to its main client base.

Although it serves many industries, most of the company’s clients operate in the medical, industrial components, consumer electronics, aerospace, and automotive manufacturing fields. Xcentric especially relishes bringing complex projects to life and creating components that are difficult to engineer and manufacture.

Always assuring clients of its best care, it is dedicated to aligning its products and services with their expectations and requirements. “[We have a] renewed focus on the customer experience, the speed at which we deliver quotes, quality products, on-time delivery, and high-quality interactions with our technology and teams. We’ve relaunched our amazing customer experience initiative to [underline] that customer experience is the number-one priority for our team,” says Matt McIntosh, Chief Executive Officer.

An emphasis has been placed on increased service awareness as the company expands its presence throughout the country. “We are currently focused on maximizing our potential in the United States, which we have the capability of serving in full,” he adds.

Keeping its mold design and tool-making capabilities ahead of those of its competitors, the company employs enterprise resource planning and design software suites that complement its vast expertise in injection molding. Its technological investments are not limited to the manufacturing side of the business, either. Its sales team and project managers benefit from systems such as Salesforce to support seamless communication with clients and provide a much-improved project journey over alternative communication methods.

The company improved its 3D printing capabilities about four years ago when early adopters created a heavy demand for quality and speed in this technology. Today, Xcentric Mold and Engineering’s 3D printing portfolio includes Stereolithography (SLA), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), MultiJet Printing (MJP), PolyJet Printing, ColorJet Printing (CJP), and Markforged printing (MKF), respected in the industry for rendering parts of superb complexity and strength.

3D printing is indispensable for rapidly making fully-functional prototypes at a much-reduced cost. This means going into full fabrication for clients significantly faster. Its guarantee of speed is also evident in its CNC tool machining department where machined parts have been produced within two to five days since 2018.

“Our expertise here gives us capabilities to design and manufacture tools for a range of simple to complex parts. On top of that, we do it with the speed and efficiency that our customers have come to expect from an elite rapid prototyping manufacturer,” says McIntosh.

Founded in 1995 by brothers Brendan and Damon Weaver, it was built on the expertise they gleaned from years in the industry. Concluding that molders at the time were all pretty much the same, the Weaver brothers set out to do things differently. Together, they set up processes that would transform the future of injection molding in this highly industrial area and automated what had traditionally been a mainly manual process. While several economic downturns and recessions have shaken many manufacturing outfits, Xcentric’s differentiating factors have allowed the company to soar.

Xcentric Mold and Engineering has relationships with engineers from myriad fields and a deep understanding of its specialty which means that its molds are delivered to clients with a lifetime guarantee. That is how confident this company is about its capabilities.

The company’s sales team is as well-versed in the production process as the rest of the company. An exhaustive understanding of the technical side of the product is instilled in each salesperson from the beginning by familiarizing them with all engineering and production processes. Thorough training leads to clear communication with both clients and engineers, resulting in a smoother, faster, and more enjoyable journey from the drawing board to delivery.

Xcentric’s comprehensive training process is naturally a great drawing card and so its group of around one hundred staff members is always growing. “This place is great because just walking around the building and talking to the team on the plant floor, you get a real sense for just how much they care about this business. They care about our customers, and they care about each other. Everyone here is committed to Xcentric’s success. It’s a true testament to the type of people we have here,” says McIntosh.

Complementing its attention to detail in its technology and manufacturing processes, hiring recruits is not left to the luck-of-the-draw. A strong technical background, an appreciation of urgency, and pragmatism are all qualities that are valued in prospective candidates, as is the ability to transition concepts from idea to delivery of designs that are both functional and of superior quality. Solid communication skills and a willingness to collaborate with engineers openly and productively are also essential requirements.

As with everything else this company touches, it overcame the trials that COVID-19 presented. “I’m very proud of the way our team embraced that challenge and found creative ways to stay operational. Our IT team did a fantastic job of securing technology and deploying it so our office staff could work from home. At the production facilities, we followed all state, local, and CDC guidelines to ensure a healthy and safe place for our team,” McIntosh says.

The results are outstanding. Since February, the company is back to pre-pandemic growth rates despite the knock-on effects that shipping difficulties create. “The team did a great job adapting to the influx of orders and has continued to maintain on-time delivery rates in the ninety percent range,” adds McIntosh.

While he is well aware of the difficulties ahead, the leader remains optimistic about the future. “We believe the economy is going to rebound in 2021, and manufacturing is set to take a big step forward. We have plans to increase more than thirty percent this year,” McIntosh tells us, noting that this trend is evident in the growing demand for domestic manufacturing partners.

Although it looks at 2021 as a recovery period, the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines offers great hope for employees to be able to return to the office soon. “Additionally, that is combined with an increased demand for on-shoring which should continue to create more demand for Xcentric. We continue to forecast strong demand from automotive, packaging, industrial, commercial, and medical device markets for injection-molded products,” McIntosh says. From this, there should be a corresponding rise in product developers and engineers approaching with new projects.

Plunging into a pandemic world has led the company to rediscover its true strengths from its perpetual investment in operations, lean manufacturing, and sales and marketing, and Xcentric is preparing to welcome ever-greater numbers of new partners seeking it out for unmatched service.

The post Celebrating 25 Years of Molding Excellence<p class="company">Xcentric Mold and Engineering</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Cogent supplies specifically to businesses involved in electrical machinery that use electrical steel products, with almost 100 percent of Cogent’s products and services going toward the upkeep of motors, generators, and electrical transformers for power supplies or conversion.

The company will frequently supply transformers that go into specific electrical devices like MRI machines or various other types of transformers (pull-top, padded mount, large substation) in a countryside setting.

Company president and CEO Ron Harper is quick to point out further instances involving the unique applications that the company is a part of, such as acting as supplier for a small customer out of Quebec which had an emergency need to build power supplies for hospital beds, or for one of its American customers providing power to mobile hospitals in need.

Electrical power is Cogent’s game, and it can act as a supplier for it in myriad dynamic and versatile ways.

Harper details Cogent as being a make-to-order product business with a low level of standardization and high turnaround; as a result, Cogent places a premium value on being reliable as a supplier in terms of delivering its products and being available to clients as much as possible.

Speaking the client’s language
The company’s client focus comes through in aspects like its approach to problem solving, where Cogent employees will work together with clients on a design and product applications to get the best result. “We have more client product design engineers on our staff than most competitors combined,” Harper continues. “We can speak the language of our clients.”

The company’s clientele can always feel like they have the best materials, the most reliable delivery, and the flexibility to make changes at any time.

Harper describes the company as one that is very material-driven, an identity which exists at the other end of what he views as a directional choice within the industry.

On one hand, there are those businesses in the electrical space that lean toward a commodity-focused experience due to the industry’s very nature and the raw materials that go into supplying it.

Cogent finds itself on the other side, finding great success by integrating products and services in a more solution-oriented approach to product supply.

Harper explains that 100 percent of the company’s raw material stock is a thin-gauge electrical steel product which is finished into electrical components. However, while many people in the industry have a similar background in steel and so approach it in a similar way, the Cogent team engage differently with the product.

Engaging strategy
Their difference – and their strength – comes from working closely with clients in an advisory role, and from taking up a more strategic position than many competitors, who are used to a more transactional relationship, care to do.

Looking back on 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic presented its own challenges and opportunities for Cogent as an established name. Harper feels that the company managed the unusual situation generally quite well thanks to its large and diverse workforce, which worked hard to keep the virus out of the business and implement changes and new practices to maintain and protect the bottom line.

The company was designated an essential business from the beginning with orders and demands picking up in the pandemic’s early months as clients looked to get ahead of changes in their supply chains.

Harper admits that the first couple of months were the hardest, however, due to the uncertainty and discomfort many felt at the changes in the workplace and the world. Challenges cropped up as employees began to stay away from the office out of health concerns. The company filled the gaps with workers who had been displaced at other industries due to quarantine measures.

This, along with the constantly changing communication around the virus, its effects and its spread, fostered an industry-wide tumultuous climate. Fortunately, this company was able to gets it feet back under it in quick time and remains on steady ground to this day.

Flexible and adaptable
Harper admits that a lot of the challenges faced by Cogent, outside of the outstanding global circumstances, are not unique to the company and are handled deftly by a “flexible and adaptable team which can work in a client-focused way and is willing to put the effort in.”

Cogent’s raw materials are 100 percent steel products with steel markets going through surprising developments at the end of 2020. A shortage in materials and an increase in price means that the industry is seeing supply-and-demand constraints but with an added challenge for Cogent of significant growth occurring in the electric and hybrid vehicle markets.

Demand is constraining the supply of raw materials and it is a challenge for companies to source the materials to supply long-term and potential clients, leading to a skyrocketing in prices.

Seasonal challenges
The company also has its own share of typical seasonal challenges as well as those that are more recent and market focused.

Cogent rents two large heat-treating facilities that experience a major rise in heat during summer weather conditions, which can become a health and safety problem at times.

The company is also a large supplier to the US market of distribution transformers which typically become casualties of hurricanes and tornadoes, leading to peak demands during those seasons.

There has even been a pickup in demand recently thanks to the freezing temperatures seen in Texas in the early winter months of 2021.

Dealing with these unpredictable emergencies is nothing new to Cogent, which will typically rearrange its production around clients in need, and turn its services around in a couple of days with its usual customer-first attitude. Clients’ problems and emergencies are responsibilities the company takes on as they happen and it looks to rise to the challenge even better with the aid of its new backer.

Ownership change
Since a previous feature on Cogent Power in Business in Focus Magazine in 2019, the company has undergone an ownership change, being acquired by a large Japanese company called JFE Holdings (part of the JFE Shoji Corporation), making Cogent a part of the JVI Electrical Components Group.

Cogent is now affiliated with a group inside a large business where electrical machinery, along with the specialized nature of Cogent’s products and services, are uniquely aligned with a new strategy.

Harper explains that, from a component side, the company has primarily provided transformer components, but with new ownership comes a capability and capacity that can enable Cogent to grow into more motor and core components.

JFE is also a critical supplier with Japanese auto manufacturers where future opportunities lie in electric- and hybrid-vehicle motor manufacturing, especially as gasoline and diesel systems change to more sustainable options.

This means that corporations like JFE will require more of the products and materials that companies like Cogent process. Harper summarizes JFE’s role: “JFE is a regional leader in Japan and has a strong strategic vision to be a bigger player as the new market emerges.”

Cogent is more than ready to be a part of the long-term vision of JFE Shoji. Harper foresees that many short-term challenges may soon crop up on the supply side of the business, but the new parent company expects growth from Cogent in the next 10 years by taking advantage of its new markets and strengthening its transformer position.

Big part of the plan
Cogent looks to continue supporting local partners moving toward electrical and hybrid vehicle solutions in that time. As Harper says of the current state of play, “Cogent is just starting down the path but will be a big part of the plan moving forward.”

The company will also continue to be part of developments in the electrical grid and will be looking into opportunities to make the grid more efficient and intelligent in how it supplies power to businesses and residences.

Cogent Power has gone through a lot of growth and challenges, but Harper recognizes that it has been built on the support, strength, and flexibility of the entire team.

“We couldn’t have gotten to where we are without a team focused on growth – a team that was a helpful contributor in getting the business to where it is,” Harper summarizes. New developments and exciting plans lie ahead for this business in the coming years.

The post New Owner, New Horizons, Same Commitment<p class="company">Cogent Power</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Tanya Wilson, Director of Community Planning and Development, tells us more about the city’s vision and its promise to create a thriving and abundant future for all who live here.

Known for its natural beauty and varied landscapes, North Miami offers its citizens natural beauty and varied landscapes in eleven nearby parks and combine that with all the perks of modern city living. These inner-city parks and gardens welcome thousands of visitors annually. Wilson underlines how the city’s parks were returned to their rightful role of necessary spaces of retreat and reflection.

One such park, The Enchanted Forest Elaine Gordon Park has paved trails that wind through more than twenty acres of land with tropical fauna and flora along Arch Creek. The park contains picnic areas and activities for all ages.

“There’s something unique about having a city that has an urban landscape with commercial settings and tall buildings and spaces and plazas where people can gather for cultural arts events. It’s the tenets of a city… where people gather and commerce can occur,” Wilson says. “But nestled between all that hardscape are wetlands and trails and creeks and exotic wildlife,” she adds, marveling at what she refers to as the balance between two ecosystems. While North Miami “is very urban, it is also very green and sensitive and fragile,” she says. Being on the coast, one can even see dolphins from shore.

The city’s recreation facilities are top-notch, with beautifully tended sports courts and fields dotted about the urban landscape. Seven community centers create welcoming spaces for locals, while well-respected schools include the Florida International University (FIU) and Johnson and Wales University.

From carefully curated exhibitions at its Museum of Contemporary Art to the latest in all types of music, the city’s cultural life has much to offer. “We are respected when it comes to the arts communities, fine arts, and even in terms of culinary arts,” says Wilson. FIU’s globally-appreciated culinary arts program facilities have played host to several Iron Chef America shows.

The city of North Miami is a business-positive investor’s dream, with over $199 million poured into its infrastructure through private investment alongside more than one billion dollars in planned and executed real estate developments in just half a decade. Today, it has far over three and a half million square feet of retail and mixed-use space, and there is still room to grow.

Another crown jewel, Solé Mia, spans more than 180 acres just east of Biscayne Boulevard and will be comprised of a mixed-use development with a luxury village feel. Solé Mia sits on top of a cleaned and rehabilitated landfill site, proving that one person’s trash is another’s treasure.

“This is a great example of the reuse of a site that had no hope or purpose. It is a great example of what you can do to transform many of these brownfield sites that you see around the country and the world,” Wilson says.

The current timeline indicates that the opening of mixed-use, luxury apartment complex The Shoreline at Solé Mia will be in two years. The fifteen-year development of the rest of the site will offer more than one million square feet of commercial space and around 4,000 residential units and huge park spaces.

The site will also boast the ten-acre, 350,000-square-foot University of Miami Medical Center, a state-of-the-art medical facility with every conceivable medical specialist, all under one roof. International patients will have access to a nearby hotel that is part of the development, where they can recover and relax in luxury and privacy, overlooking Biscayne Bay.

The development promises to be a prolific job creator for the region, not to mention the subsidiary businesses and trade that will spring up around it to serve the needs of visitors and residents.

As well as this spectacular development, the city has seen a healthy response to its clustered mixed-use developments situated along its main corridors. One of the reasons for the positivity could be favorable interest rates, but its great urban design that allows for easy access to green spaces will also have a lot to do with its popularity in times such as these.

“We’re thrilled that preparation has now met opportunity. We were prepared for today because we started this intentional land use planning,” Wilson says. Part of this planning includes revitalizing largely forgotten areas throughout the city that promise handsome tax revenues once they are revived and reimagined.

When it comes to the international COVID-19 ordeal and North Miami’s survival, Wilson remains pragmatic. “Like the rest of the world and the rest of the country, we have been tested and tried, but we found a way to make lemonade from the lemons that we received,” she says.

Federal aid allowed the city to further train its workforce in medical and health science certification courses through online programs at FIU in collaboration with John Hopkins University. “That would not have been possible before but we took advantage of the resources [provided] by the Federal Government. We wanted to tailor our dollars and used it to up-skill our residents so that they could be fit for the market. The market right now is health-focused,” says Wilson.

The city also offered much support to small-to-medium outfits in the restaurant industry, especially those that were not geared toward online ordering and take-away. “We discovered that, even with the challenges, some of the old mom-and -pops that only had brick and mortar operations and only served from the soup counter were challenged to come into the digital space,” Wilson says.

Through collaboration with the website design and software development company Digital Pixel, the city provided technical assistance by providing software and hardware installation to Smart Biz Grant recipients. During the pandemic the North Miami Community Redevelopment Agency (NMCRA) also provided additional assistance to businesses with various grants. The Nomi Delivers Grant allowed businesses to register with delivery companies like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and others. “Many started to crank out more food from the ‘ghost kitchens’ [because] the city helped by giving them funding and a smart grant for a website and additional money so that they could afford to sign up,” she adds.

Wilson points out that the rise of e-commerce translates to hard times for businesses that cannot adapt but that it is possible to rise through the adversity thanks to federal grants. She also highlights that, surprisingly, as little as fifty percent of American small businesses have joined the online retail space, leaving much room for improvement. The city did its part to enable a smooth transition between old and new operating methods, helping many of its local businesses to join the technological era.

To create further resilience and income security for its citizens, the city also identified the very fickle and fragile hospitality industry as a starting point for economic reform. It now aims to provide workers in hospitality with the means and skills to secure alternative employment when the tourist industry is down. To achieve this, the city is inviting businesses in light industry, research and technology, and manufacturing across several sustainable fields to settle in the region and create a more stable income base for its people.

The city provides financial assistance to new businesses looking to settle in North Miami while helping to sustain existing businesses. In addition, a federal-granted green energy supplement allows it to provide businesses with energy audits in collaboration with Florida Power & Light, to mitigate energy waste and improve operational design and energy preservation. The initiative helps to protect the environment and saves businesses a great deal of money in energy savings.

Another funding source created by the city was the Legacy Grant that was designed to assist established businesses who have been in the city for at least 15 years. Many of these businesses have been in the city for many decades and form the backbone of North Miami’s economy.

“We set aside a grant pot just for [the older generation of business owners so that they] do not have to feel stressed. [They] can come in here and work with us,” says Wilson. “It was beautiful to hear the stories of many of them who have been here for forty or fifty years through recessions, through hurricanes, [and are still here through] COVID. [They are] committed to this city,” she adds.

“Look for the problems in your city. Do not retreat from them. Look at problems with new eyes and bring in different stakeholders that could help you bring about innovative solutions,” Wilson says. So, in a bid to refresh the central business district, the city approached FIU’s architecture faculty to explore new design guidelines for one of its main streets, Seventh Avenue. To the great delight of the city management teams, graduate students came up with brilliant facade and signage suggestions.

What becomes clear when talking with Tanya Wilson is that North Miami is about more than business. It is a city whose people have big hearts, especially when it comes to creating community.

As Wilson so wisely points out, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. “A friend said this to me several years ago. I never truly got it until we were [amid] COVID-19, because even [during] a crisis, there is still opportunity for growth. A crisis is a time to plan and reposition yourself as a city, to get ahead,” she says. And this is true. The glittering City of North Miami is planning its way to a successful future, and there is most certainly much more grit to the diverse folks of North Miami than appears at first glance. If there is one example of what a city of the future should look like today, it is this one.

Sidebar 1:
NoMi Business Park Powered by The Greater North Miami Chamber of Commerce
After more than 30 years since its last building renovation, The Greater North Miami Chamber of Commerce (GNMCC) is opening its doors with a new look, strengthened mission and determination to spark an economic revitalization.

“The time for flexible workspace is right now,” said David Burney, Chairman of GNMCC. “[The] COVID-19 pandemic deeply affected our business community, decimating so many of local entrepreneurs. Our Chamber will be on the forefront, leading a rebound of business relaunch and start-ups.”

With its sleek décor and state-of-the-art technology, the business park enables entrepreneurs to rent co-working space to suit their individual needs. Affordable pricing plans are available, including hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual rates, and features include:
• Ergonomic desks & chairs
• New computers & laptop hookup
• Photocopy/fax/scan services
• High Speed WIFI Internet access
• Post & parcel services
• Meeting space rental

“We are more than office space; we are a community,” Burney said. “Businesses can obtain a GNMCC Certificate of Use and a City of North Miami Business Tax License to have an official office mailing address for your business or nonprofit organization.”

And, coming soon…
GNMCC will open its Outdoor Nature Pavilion with new backyard meeting/event space, and host a bevy of incubator programs to support business resources, including state registration, municipal licensing, fiscal management, marketing, a digital portfolio and so much more.

“There are so many exciting things happening in the City of North Miami, and I greatly look forward to our vibrant future,” Burney said.

Stop by the GNMCC at 13100 West Dixie Highway, North Miami, FL 33161, Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 4 pm. For more information, visit www.NorthMiamiChamber.org or contact 305-299-6162 or info@NorthMiamiChamber.com.
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Sidebar 2:
The Haitian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida (HACCOF) – Building Strong Community Partnerships
The Haitian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida (HACCOF) is a non-profit organization established in 2005. Its mission is to serve as an advocate for its communities as well as a resource for consumers and businesses dedicated to serving both the needs of its members and the economic development demands of the broader Haitian American community.

HACCOF is the leading organization coordinating and facilitating networking programs and hosting educational, local, and international trade forums and other initiatives to help to build healthy business climates, foster investment opportunities, create employment growth, and encourage public and private sector collaboration.

HACCOF believes that Young Haitian American Professionals are a vital asset to Florida and the United States. In 2016, HACCOF launched its annual Award Ceremony honoring the “Top 20 Under 40” Haitian American Young Professionals (YOPROs) for their Leadership, Professional Excellence, and Community Involvement. HACCOF is proud to announce that it will be honoring its 2021 class of “Top 20 Under 40” Haitian American Young Professionals (YOPROs) on Thursday, September 30, 2021.

HACCOF established the HACCOF Foundation in 2018 as a direct-support organization to assist HACCOF in raising additional funds to serve the larger community. The HACCOF Foundation is leading the Earthquake Relief Effort with its partner organizations in Haiti to provide disaster relief assistance to its brothers and sisters impacted by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that affected the southwestern part of Haiti on Saturday, August 14, 2021.

For more information and to learn of ways you can help, visit www.haccof.com.
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The post Urban Oasis<p class="company">City of North Miami, FL</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

While CCRM initially focused on a number of areas, it understood that building an industry requires core capabilities in manufacturing around the products being developed, and Canada’s strength in innovation and science had created incredible clinical infrastructure for testing products in clinical trials.

“Before anyone ever was talking about gaps in manufacturing, CCRM made it a focus,” says Dr. Michael May, President and CEO.

So why is manufacturing important to an entity like CCRM that’s charged with helping develop technologies, and create and scale companies? “Manufacturing creates stickiness,” May says. “When manufacturing is done locally and companies are created locally, companies are apt to stay in the local ecosystem if the manufacturing is done there.”

Sticky factor
That vital sticky factor also extends to clinical infrastructure, “great” scientific communities like downtown Toronto, and access to capital.

On the manufacturing front, CCRM has employed a three-pronged strategy, with the first being to develop core technology platforms to fill gaps in manufacturing workflows for these very specialized and complex cell and gene therapies, says May. This involves hardware, bioreactors, equipment for characterizing the product and producing it at scale.

About five years ago, supported by the Canadian government, the company launched a partnership with Cytiva, formerly GE Healthcare, to build a centre of excellence for cell and manufacturing technologies where CCRM could tackle bottlenecks in cell and gene therapy workflow.

That partnership, and helping set up the Centre for Advanced Therapeutic Cell Technologies (CATCT), was one of Philip Vanek’s career highlights. Vanek, now CTO and a partner at Gamma Biosciences, was at GE Healthcare when he met with May in 2014.

“That was the brainchild of an almost chance meeting between Michael and myself, along with the opportunity and the foresight of the Canadian government to ask, what are the ingredients you need to help fulfill the mission of CCRM?” Vanek says.

“I thought if CCRM with their extreme visibility and ability could bring talent into the organization and offer CDMO types of services, and GE bring this ability to invent and commercialize new equipment for manufacturing, it felt like a win-win-win for everybody involved.”

That partnership with Cytiva drew worldwide attention for its size, scope, and vision of not only tackling gaps in technology, but also helping with the scale-up of therapeutics companies.

A lab for learning
“It really was a great place to try new technologies and work with partners to bring their technologies in,” says Vanek. “It was a great laboratory for learning about manufacturing and what it would take to manufacture cell and gene therapies.”

That technology translated to better understanding of processes for different types of cell and gene therapies, and the subsequent establishment of the CCVP (Centre for Cell and Vector Production), where new approaches are tested before they’re moved into manufacturing.

Vital support from FedDev Ontario, the Canadian government, and also Cytiva has played a huge role in the company’s ongoing success and ground-breaking discoveries.

The second prong of CCRM’s strategy was the launch of a clinical GMP-compliant manufacturing facility in 2019 in partnership with the University Health Network (UHN). This sizeable facility boasts 10 clean rooms, with two particularly designed for producing viral vectors used to modify cells.

“They represent an important kind of need and gap in the industry,” says May of the facility that employs close to 100 individuals and produces cell product for clinical trials for both academic and industry clients. “That’s important for the development of new therapeutics, but it’s also key to supporting companies being created in our ecosystems that need to take their products from development into clinical trials.”

The third pillar
The third pillar, which CCRM is working on now, involves taking manufacturing to the commercial scale via a partnership with McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.

While this is the final stage of support for companies that go through clinical trials and need commercial manufacturing, it’s also a place for companies from around the world to manufacture with a North American market in mind.

“After they’ve been tested in the clinical phase facility, we do plan on establishing them in the commercial facility to create a differentiated CDMO that’s seamlessly connected to the kind of manufacturing ecosystem that CCRM has created, but also to the pipeline of companies and technologies that CCRM has established to create this integrated comprehensive manufacturing strategy from front to back,” says May.

CCRM’s vision for what it’s done to date in terms of company creation is very ecosystem driven, and to that end, this industrial site in Hamilton will help create and extend its manufacturing ecosystem by setting up not just a manufacturing facility, but also supply chain and logistics partners, while training technicians to work in GMP facilities.

To solidify that strategy around training, CCRM has launched a new company with a sister organization in Montreal called CellCAN.

CATTI, the Canadian Advanced Therapy Training Institute, will work with the other non-profit, academic, and for-profit entities to launch its content and offerings in training for manufacturing over the next several years.

“We want to create companies that can be sustainable because of the manufacturing, and supported by the manufacturing capability,” says May. “Also, the companies we’re creating become clients of the manufacturing business that we do here.

“There’s this mutual feedback between creating companies that benefit from the manufacturing, while having the manufacturing building the clientele in the customer pipeline over time for the manufacturing.”

Canada’s capital
Although Canada is a small country in the scheme of things, it has great human capital and the desire to push boundaries, says Claudia Zylberberg, founder and now Executive Chair of Akron Biotech, from Boca Raton, FL. She became a CCRM board member two years ago, working with the board for advancements, understanding needs, giving advice and helping new companies looking to be part of CCRM.

“I think Canada is poised to grow because of the intellectual and human capital,” says Zylberberg. “I think that’s what CCRM is looking for, the expansion of more infrastructure for action for cell and gene therapy and manufacturing, which I think is the piece that’s maybe missing right now.”

Being close to the U.S. also provides an opportunity to grow this space and new modalities of therapies across borders, she adds, along with expanding its global footprint.

CCRM’s success building the foundation as a public-private partnership with academic and Industry partners and investors started with a team and core abilities that included manufacturing. Now, CCRM is making investments in companies and has supported 14 of them over the last several years.

In addition to the investment activity happening in this phase, CCRM has leveraged its manufacturing capabilities into a business that gives it the credibility to grow to the commercial scale in the next phase of manufacturing through partnerships with Cytiva and clients around the world.

Now, with only 10 percent of its funding coming from the government, CCRM as a public-private partnership is self-sustainable as well.

“We’re here to serve the community and build the ecosystem, so we want it to be sustainable to attract capital on the back of our investments and support,” says May. “Sustaining the CCRM model is done by establishing partnerships in different places in the world so we can create hubs that all work together under the kind of leadership banner we’ve created in Canada.”

The microscope turns
The COVID pandemic, adds May, has put a microscope on life sciences and manufacturing, creating an opportunity to leverage the learnings from this pandemic into not just vaccine support, but a broad bio-manufacturing strategy.

“We talked quite a bit at the beginning of COVID about how we’ve offshored almost all of our capacity manufacturing,” says Vanek. “It’s obviously stressed a lot of supply chains globally and showed us where some of the kinks in the armour were.”

In the long run, he adds, it does show the promise of these therapies and probably more importantly, the pace at which we can adopt and bring technologies on board.

May adds that he hasn’t yet seen investment in a strategy from the government. “It’s more investing in buildings and capacity and attracting foreign companies to come and create capacity, but there’s a big difference between capacity and capability.”

Both of these are needed to build ecosystems, and therein lies the real opportunity in bio-manufacturing in Canada, he says: By tying the ecosystem strategy to investments in bio-manufacturing, you can create a robust ecosystem for sustainability.

“We want to tie all this together in a coordinated and collaborative, very Canada-like strategy so we can continue to punch above our weight in manufacturing, like we punch above our weight in lots of other things,” says May.

An issue of talent
While CCRM’s purpose is tackling the big problems in cell and gene therapy, it also has its own issues to handle, including access to talent and capital.

In a rapidly growing industry with high demand for talent, CCRM must integrate the development of talent into its strategy, first attracting it and then retaining it in its ecosystem. “Otherwise all our good folks will be drawn away and we’ll need to attract others to come to Canada,” says May.

Ultimately, CCRM’s reason for doing the work they do is the promise and potential of cell and gene therapy, and without manufacturing in place, those therapy developers and their discoveries won’t get to the patients, he adds.

“They need us and Canada needs us because there’s nothing else like us in Canada. Without the ability to manufacture, the therapies will go offshore, and other jurisdictions will have first access to them.”

What’s just as important as the manufacturing is a stake in the ground to keep the companies they’re building here, May says, and the most important issue in all of this is the people, and keeping people in Canada.

Revolutionizing medicine
“There’s a health benefit that we’re talking about here, but there’s also an economic benefit to the strategy that’s really at the crux of our mission,” he says. “Cell and gene therapies are living therapies and incorporate living tissues which makes them very complex to manufacture.”

The advantage of such therapies, however, is they can provide cures.

For blood cancers like leukemia they can now take T-cells from a patient’s blood, genetically engineer those T-cells outside of the body to particularly target the tumour, and then infuse them back in the patient to destroy the tumour.

“The response rates from those types of therapies are 70 to 90 percent complete cures,” says May. “That’s unprecedented in medical therapy, especially for cancer. These are therapies that will revolutionize medicine, but they also require us to rethink manufacturing in significant ways. That’s why the technology development is an important part of our strategy.”

It’s also why the clinical phase is vital – ultimately leading to the commercial scale where everything comes together to generate impact.

“Why let someone else in the world develop all that knowhow?” asks May. “We should have it embedded in Canada as well as anywhere else.”

Zylberberg agrees. “I’ve been involved in government advising for different grants that were available there, and I’m understanding the Canadian government can see the value of having their own manufacturing and their own commercial scale available for their population and even for the world. It’s a great asset and a great action for the government to act upon.”

With Health Canada having approved numerous advanced therapies, the promise and potential of regenerative therapy is already making a difference.

“The future is here,” says May. “These therapies are being given to patients now and CCRM is an important player in helping those therapy developers.”

The post Promise and Potential: Filling the Gaps in Cell and Gene Therapy<p class="company">CCRM</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Founded by Alex Kuperman and his father in 1989, ABI LTD has developed high-calibre technologies and customized solutions for many stages of the commercial baking process, while preserving a reputation for reliability among bakers everywhere.

As a result of these abilities, plus the robust design and ABI’s ‘built-in” quality, growing numbers of bakeries in North America are turning to the company’s solutions to produce baked goods, from bagels to pretzels, and pizzas to sweet pastries and breads.

In recent years, as the company grew from 16 employees to 80, its reputation crossed the Atlantic to Paris where TMG (Together Means Greater), the company that in 2018 had acquired Mecatherm, the French bakery equipment industry giant, sat up and took notice. The result was that after a series of negotiations, TMG announced it had acquired a majority stake in ABI LTD, inviting the Canadian company to step onto the global stage as a sister company to Mecatherm. This partnership gives Mecatherm access to North American markets and ABI LTD to the 80 countries in which Mecatherm equipment currently operates.

In a joint press release, issued simultaneously in Paris and Toronto on January 5, 2021, ABI LTD is described as “a premier North American bakery solutions provider recognized for its bagel and pretzel production equipment, its robotic solutions, and its automation equipment. Led by co-founder and CEO Alex Kuperman, ABI LTD has sales of roughly $20M (CAD), strong growth, and deep technical expertise supported by a team of nearly 80 people.”

Declared Olivier Sergent, President of TMG and Mecatherm, “ABI’s know-how for integrating robotic solutions in production lines, its leading position in bagels in North America, and the reliability of its equipment – widely recognized by the market – convinced us.”

Recently we enjoyed a teleconference interview with Alex Kuperman, ABI’s co-founder and CEO; Carl Heinlein, President and COO; Eric Miedema, Engineering Manager; and Jadecy Kidane, who joined the company this past April as marketing and communications specialist.

Kuperman’s story begins in the former USSR, where he was born in what is now Ukraine, in the city of Odessa, before emigrating to Canada with his parents in 1977. Upon arrival his father began working for a company that was manufacturing bagel-making equipment, “and within a year I started working there as well, doing odd jobs after school. I really loved the work because I love being around machinery,” he tells us.

After graduating from Ryerson University in Toronto with a degree in mechanical engineering, he joined the company as an engineer and began designing machines. “There was a bagel boom at the time,” he recalls, and bagels had just started appearing on North American tables.

The company for which the Kupermans worked was one of the first to manufacture a fully automated bagel production plant, but after initial success, it was sold to a US conglomerate and moved to Florida.

The Kupermans were not left workless however, and their combined expertise as millwright and engineer “gave us a foot in the door,” Alex Kuperman says. “We completed some local projects and customers were happy with our work, and we continued to service customers and extend the business by selling bakery equipment and coming up with small innovations.

“But we decided we needed to start manufacturing as we didn’t want to be just a service and re-sale company. With my engineering background, we came up with the idea of providing automation to the bagel forming process. We developed and patented it and that is how ABI started in 1989.”

In addition to manufacturing bagel-making machinery in their first facility in Concord, ON, Kuperman designed a multi-belt bagel former and began automating other parts of the process, including placement of bagels onto the boards, and boiling and adding toppings to bagels, “and we slowly expanded our range of machines that would give consistent results.”

Today most of the world’s bagel-making industry is using either ABI’s equipment or equipment the company supports.

Robotics can be found in an arsenal of tools that industrial bakeries typically use to move products from point A to point B, from production line into packaging. ABI, however, has produced application-specific robotic tools which increase consistency and quality of end products – in the case of this example, bread.

Once the dough has risen and is placed in the pan, the upper surface of the dough must be scored to allow gasses created during the baking process to escape. As the temperature within the bread rises, the water content in the dough becomes steam and if the surface hasn’t been scored or cut to a precise depth, the result will be an ugly, cracked loaf.

But scoring bread on a high production line is a boring job, as Kuperman points out. “If the bakery is using unskilled labour, the quality of the bread will suffer, but on the other hand qualified bakers don’t want to do this job. So here is where robots come in, making the depth of the cut consistent throughout the entire process.”

ABI’s ultrasonic blades are stronger and more durable than conventional blades, Kuperman says. They are flexible in terms of the look they create because the vibrational amplitude, ranging from 20 to 40 kHz, can be adjusted to create bread that has an artisanal appearance, and as it’s an ultrasonic blade, it doesn’t have to be cleaned often as nothing sticks to it.

Robots are also used in packaging, as one might expect. But in addition, ABI has designed a cake decorator that can create piping designs that previously would have needed highly skilled cake artists; a robot that can brand a loaf of bread with a bakery’s name or logo; and a water jet robot that can cut through a cake to create unique designs.

ABI, however, is about more than robotics, as Carl Heinlein explains. “It’s about providing solutions to customers. Many come to us because competitors have given them a catalogue-driven range of equipment. Even though we do see the economies in having a standardized product, many of our customers appreciate our ability to customize, to address exactly the problem they have and solve that specific problem,” he says.

“We do that very well. We manufacture on site and do it more quickly than many of our competitors because we have a shorter cycle from order to delivery and we use our own teams for installation and commissioning the equipment. We own the whole process, from winning the design, to manufacturing it, installing it, and getting it up and running,” he explains.

“We get it done, we stand by our product, and, because our customers come first, we make the sacrifices we need to until we have a happy customer who is satisfied with our solution.”

To continuously improve the company’s manufacturing abilities, adds Eric Miedema, “We’ve focused a lot on Lean Manufacturing training, especially with regards to reduction of waste, and Lean Six Sigma Training, which is about reducing variation, and that has helped everyone be part of the change.”

Repeat business plays a leading role in ABI’s success, and Kuperman notes that he’s just come off the phone with a customer ABI has worked with for 15 years and who is now expanding. “We appreciate the quality of the product you’ve supplied, and want you to be an integral part of our growth,” the client told him.

The company’s expertise, he says, is “such that ABB (one of ABI’s choice suppliers and a leading global technology company) calls up and says, ‘we have this problem, and can you guys solve it?’”

After 25 years, Kuperman and his father came to a realization of the difficulty of doing everything that needs to be done to grow a company and that started them thinking about ABI’s future.

“We understood that a small company like ours has only two ways forward: either to remain a family-oriented operation (indeed both my mother and wife were also involved in the company’s origin); or to persevere and make growth our focus. This is when I found Carl and he joined the leadership team as COO and President, and together we began implementing changes to develop a top-tier and professional management culture.”

ABI moved from a 20,000 square-foot facility in Concord to a 40,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Richmond Hill. The move proved useful when he and Heinlein set out to streamline and mature the company processes and fill in gaps with the necessary skilled people, which increased its workforce to 80 team members.

They believed that production was in keeping with global standards, but they hired an HR professional to organize the workforce and ensure hiring policies were inclusive. Today there are at least 15 different cultures or ethnicities employed at ABI, and the office staff and executive comprise some 50 percent women. Currently, the company is working to increase the number of women employed on the floor.

While ABI moved to professionalize its business practices, there’s been an effort to keep the family atmosphere. “I’ve gotten to know people here in a short time,” Kidane says, “and it feels like more than a team, but at the same time there is a continuous effort to improve the business processes with an understanding of what value that can bring and what that means for us as a company in a competitive market.”

“We must have done something right,” Kuperman says, “because a year ago, a large company from France came to us and said, ‘we really like what you’ve built, and we think your product line complements ours. We are not competitors; we have certain expertise and you have certain expertise, and we think that together we can achieve better results than we would with each of us going our separate paths.’ Negotiating during the pandemic presented some difficulties, but because we thought alike and we viewed the industry from the same perspective, we were able to complete this deal. TMG (Together Means Greater) acquired a majority stake in ABI and I am very optimistic about both companies’ futures together,” he says.

“I always thought Mecatherm, (founded in 1964 in Paris and acquired by TMG in 2018) was a very advanced and forward-looking company. Their equipment looked sharp, their performance was known, and we had worked on a number of projects for the same customers, so we had a firsthand opportunity to observe their professionalism and the quality of their work,” shares Kuperman.

“When they approached us, I was extremely proud that we had developed the type of company that would attract interest from a global company.”

Heinlein says the company mission now is to “double our business in the next five years, just as we doubled it in the last five, and to continue with our mission to empower every bakery to maximize its potential – so that may be through robotics, investment in R&D surrounding artificial intelligence, or just automation of existing plants. We are there for companies who want to reduce their labour costs and their inefficiencies.”

Adds Kuperman, “We firmly believe that investing in AI technologies will help us achieve our goals,” and proceeds with an example – a current project that addresses complex issues of machine vision when dealing with massive numbers of baked goods moving quickly along a conveyor belt, all jumbled together.

“It’s an ambitious project, but I’m happy to say that our research team recently reported that we were now able to identify individual pieces with 99 percent accuracy. That’s a phenomenal achievement from where we stand.” And it is one that’s set to positively affect bakeries around the globe.

The post The Future of Bakery Automation<p class="company">ABI LTD</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

After the First World War, America’s scientific industry took off and the company flourished. Kewaunee jumped at the chance to grow and expand its dealer organization. By the 1930s, the company had broadened its product line to offer both wood and steel laboratory furniture and accessories.

Kewaunee became a government contractor for the Air Corps and a key supplier for the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. When the United States underwent a massive increase in technological advancements following the war, Kewaunee Scientific Corporation was there to meet the demand for high quality laboratory equipment. The company built a spacious new facility in Statesville, North Carolina to help keep up with orders and remains headquartered in that location to this day. Since then, the company has added direct sales offices in India and Singapore, grew the Statesville location to include three manufacturing facilities to serve domestic and international markets, and opened a manufacturing facility in Bangalore, India to serve the Asian markets.

Today, with decades of experience under its belt, Kewaunee is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and installation of technical, laboratory, and healthcare furniture products. These products range widely, and include everything from fume hoods, moveable workstations, and biological safety cabinets to laminate casework, adaptable modular systems, epoxy resin work surfaces and sinks, and standalone benches.

The company’s clientele has grown along with its product line. Kewaunee supplies industry leaders across multiple fields, including government agencies, research centers, universities, and the healthcare industry. The company offers a full suite of solutions for all of these clients, from design and layouts to complete installations.

In July 2020, Kewaunee Scientific Corporation launched a Technical Service Organization within Saudi Arabia. Established in the capital city of Riyadh, the organization will enable access to diverse local talent and support, and will grow the company’s presence in the Middle East and throughout Africa.

“We expect the Middle East and Africa to be growth markets for Kewaunee over the long term as investments continue to be made in these regions to modernize their respective economies,” Thomas D. Hull III, President and CEO of Kewaunee Scientific Corporation, said in a company press release. “We have invested in building relationships with key customers in the Middle East over the past decade and have delivered some of the largest and most complex laboratory projects in the region.”

B. Sathyamurthy, Vice President of Kewaunee Scientific Corporation Singapore and Managing Director of International Operations, added in the same press release, “Having delivered many prestigious projects in the Middle East, our next logical step was to be closer to our customers so we can better serve them, bringing them Kewaunee’s full range of products and services. Thanks to our enhanced presence in Saudi Arabia, we expect to be more successful in building lasting, recurring relationships with our customers in the region. This regional presence will also help our team offer more tailored solutions for the market.”

The company’s success was showcased in December 2020, when the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) honored Kewaunee International Group for its “Customer Centricity” at the National Conference on Consumer Awareness & Protection in Digital Era.

“Kewaunee International was again recognized by CII as an industry leader in customer excellence, recognizing our team’s unwavering focus on serving our customers,” Sathyamurthy said of the award in a company press release. “As the market leader in laboratory furniture and technical products, we recognize the importance of delighting our customers in all aspects of their dealings with Kewaunee. Earning this award during the coronavirus pandemic makes the award even more special and reflects the resilience of the Kewaunee International team during an unprecedented year.”

Hull added in the same press release, “Everything we do begins and ends with our customers and our desire to repeatedly earn their trust as they invest in projects that require the specialized laboratory furniture and technical products in which Kewaunee specializes.”

In July 2021, Kewaunee’s International division announced a strategic alliance with Schneider Electric that will provide key international markets, primarily in Asia and the Middle East, with integrated, turnkey solutions for market-leading laboratories. “We are proud to enter into this alliance just as the pandemic accelerates the needs of the life sciences and healthcare sectors to reimagine and redesign the operation and functioning of smart laboratories,” Manish Kumar, Senior Vice President, Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric said in a Kewaunee press release. “We envision a future where our technical expertise and Kewaunee International’s prowess in manufacturing and infrastructure will render all-encompassing smart labs to create more sustainable ecosystems for our customers.”

B. Sathyamurthy added in the same press release, “The future of laboratory infrastructure is changing and Kewaunee is investing and building capabilities to lead the laboratory 4.0 solution transformations for our customers. We are excited to partner with Schneider to provide these cutting-edge capabilities to our customers and grow together as future-ready companies.”

In August 2021, Kewaunee Scientific announced a new partnership with NuAire Exchange. NuAire has been manufacturing and distributing a wide array of laboratory and pharmacy products since 1971, making the companies a natural fit for one another. NuAire is known for its market-leading equipment designed for extreme conditions, including ultra-low-temperature freezers, animal transfer stations, animal refuse workstations, restricted access barrier systems, general purpose centrifuges, biosafety cabinets, containment ventilated enclosures, polypropylene casework, laminar airflow workstations, polypropylene fume hoods, CO₂ incubators, and more. The partnership will give NuAire access to Kewaunee’s global distribution channels while simultaneously expanding Kewaunee’s product range to include NuAire’s offerings, giving customers more options for superior solutions.

“The global market for products that Kewaunee and NuAire offer continues to grow,” Hull said in the company press release regarding the partnership. “The biosafety cabinet market is growing rapidly due to increased investment in research and development activities requiring the safety and performance of these products. Providing Kewaunee’s customers access to NuAire’s portfolio enhances our value proposition as customers are looking for partners with the capability to provide turnkey solutions when building a new laboratory or modernizing an existing facility. The partnership is a win-win for both organizations, leveraging the strengths of two market leaders.”

In July of this year, Kewaunee launched the EVERHUTCH healthcare brand. The goal is to provide products to healthcare professionals that will organize their workspaces better and increase efficiency. Developed by a team of expert product designers and tested by local healthcare professionals, EVERHUTCH is now available nationally through a dedicated distribution network. Ideal for both healthcare facilities and clinical laboratories, products include specially designed procedure carts, procedure cabinets, utility carts, and tables.

“We have spent the past year developing a portfolio of products and the distribution network necessary to bring this exciting new brand quickly to market,” Hull said in a company press release. “EVERHUTCH leverages more than a century of experience by Kewaunee, producing high quality products which are utilized in demanding environments. The healthcare furniture and storage markets are projected to grow significantly over the balance of the decade as investment is made in facilities requiring these products. I am confident that there is opportunity for Kewaunee to quickly grow market share.”

To be sure, the past two years have been packed with exciting endeavors for Kewaunee, from new partnerships to new product lines. After 115 years of ongoing growth and success, one can only wonder what will come next for this long-lived, market-leading company.

The post New Products, New Partnerships<p class="company">Kewaunee Scientific Corporation</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Belmont County Port Authority invited two of the region’s up-and-coming business leaders, Ohio Gig and MPR Transloading, to tell us more about how they are helping to propel the county forward with their game-changing contributions to this fast-growing local economy.

Belmont County’s position in the Wheeling, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area of West Virginia, near Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland, makes it a transportation hub with easy access to Interstate 70, Interstate 470, and Ohio Route 7. The region offers commercial and private landing strips, Class I and Class II rail with access to the Norfolk Southern Railway, the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Company, and the Ohio River, which have been transformed into valuable assets by MPR Transloading. As the gig economy continues to expand, high-speed fiber optics service is being introduced by Ohio Gig, bringing all businesses and students the opportunity to experience modern connectivity.

Larry Merry, Executive Director, is full of praise for the recently founded firm. “Ohio Gig is making tremendous investment in our community. We are so excited that we were able to get connected with the company last fall. We worked with them in getting an agreement put together. To have someone come in and provide an infrastructure that is so necessary in today’s world,” he says.

Merry points out that, while there are communities in the county with sufficient internet supply, the infrastructure installed by Ohio Gig will elevate the entire county’s economy to a new level. For people and new business “to be able to come to Eastern Ohio and be able to get great, unbelievable fiber internet service makes us very excited. It’s important for development, quality of life, and people being able to enjoy a rural area from where they can connect with the rest of the world,” Merry adds.

The fiber optics company began with Little Miami Gig in 2020, with the mandate to create opportunities in local communities. Ohio Gig broke ground on the first phase of the $132 million Belmont County project in July this year. Belmont County will see the start of the second, third, and fourth phases in 2022, each of which will reportedly take around three to five years to complete.

“When businesses are looking at an area, communication is their number one concern. If they are going to compete globally and communicate with the world, they have to have great internet connectivity. What Ohio Gig provides is far superior to what is available in most of Eastern Ohio,” says Merry.

It all started around 2016 when the Hunter family started looking at ways to supply their fabrication company and their 1792 Revolution-era farm in Warren County, with high-speed internet. Prices were prohibitive, and the search led to Hunter’s commitment to finding a solution in the form of Fiber Capital Partners, which now acts as a funding partner for the Ohio Gig business group. Tim Berelsman, Chief Executive Officer of Ohio Gig, recalls being introduced by a colleague to the Hunter family in 2016 when he was running a consortium of independent broadband providers.

Nicholas Hunter proceeded to garner as much investor support from the local area and across Ohio Appalachia as he could, charting the way for the people of Belmont County to meet the future of business head-on. Hunter proposed going into business with Berelsman, who finally agreed in 2019. “We started up a company to bring fiber into the home in Hunter’s rural area just outside of Mason, Ohio and called that company Little Miami Gig. We turned up our first customers in May 2020,” says Berelsman.

Then came a fortuitous meeting with Larry Merry and the Belmont County Port Authority. In December 2020, Jarrod Pantier joined the Ohio Gig team as Chief Operating Officer. Pantier, from Fujitsu Network Communications, brought extensive expertise in project and construction management when he came to settle in Belmont County. Feasibility studies concluded in May 2021, and the starting date was agreed on for July this year.

“Our intention is to lay fiber past every business and every residence in Belmont County and to provide world-class, high-speed, high reliability, fiber internet services with low latency. We are installing infrastructure that will serve the needs of the Belmont County businesses and residents today, but also well into the future,” says Berelsman. He hopes that the service will strengthen the oil, gas, transportation, and other industries that contribute to the local gross domestic product, which will allow the county to become a global leader.

Ohio Gig is also fast becoming part of local communities. Together with Fiber Capital Partners, it committed Chromebooks and $35,000 to a Belmont County Backpack Program in partnership with Union Local High School and the local Farm Bureau. At the beginning of COVID-19, Ohio Gig’s work was deemed an essential service. As school students in many places were hard-pressed to find internet access to complete their school work off-premises and with no restaurants and libraries offering free wifi, the company had its work cut out.

Suddenly providing access to high-speed internet to everyone instead of only higher education institutions became imperative to the county’s education. In some rural areas, the need for internet access became so dire that school districts provided busses with hotspot boosters where students could come when they needed to complete projects and communicate with teachers online. “That was the short-term fix. Now we’re working on the long-term fix,” says Berelsman.

As the county grows, this long-term solution will continue to expand. “We accelerated our work where we knew people didn’t have any internet. While starting up Little Miami Gig, “we made sure that every time we went into somebody’s home, we wore masks. We did everything we could while still delivering that essential service where people need it the most,” he adds.

People in even the most remote areas in the Union Local School District will begin to see the arrival of excellent internet services thanks to this dynamic collaboration. It started with an area west of Saint Clairsville, Ohio, where the regional data center is located. A total of fourteen hundred miles of fiber is planned with estimated growth, according to Berelsman, at twenty to twenty-five percent over the next two to four decades.

The fiber optic project is financed by both public and grant funds and will rely on subscribers later. More funding means that the estimated five-year completion time per region can be minimized to three years, bringing the overall project timeframe down to seven years. Responsible for around half of the construction work, Ohio Gig is confident of its future in the county. In addition, its technology is ready for the next wave of home entertainment appliances that will replace copper connections with fiber soon, according to Berelsman.

“We expect the next generation of electronics to come out sometime around the second quarter of next year or so. We’re getting ready for the next platform as soon as chipset manufacturing catches up,” Berelsman says.

Since the first settlers began pushing west, the economic lifeblood of Eastern Ohio has been the Ohio River, and it’s on those shores that another significant economic contributor to Belmont County’s success has begun to leave its mark on the region as well as its industry.

MPR Transloading & Energy Services is a multi-mode transportation facility that moves freight and bulk materials from the Ohio River onto the trucks and railcars that carry them through on the last leg to their destination.

Natalie Brown, President of MPR, is proud to be part of a family business that provides quality employment opportunities to the region while passing along significant cost savings to customers. By utilizing MPR’s facility to transload a variety of commodities, companies avoid some of the transportation costs associated with moving freight further north where the river narrows and hooks east. Once offloaded at MPR, materials are within one day’s drive for more than sixty percent of the U.S. and Canadian populations.

“As a community and as the port authority, we are excited about the fact that a local company has such a valuable location, not only as a job provider for the community – because they have been a great employer with their operation – but I also look at it as infrastructure,” says Merry. Highlighting concerns such as the ever-increasing price of energy and other looming challenges, he praises MPR for its proven capabilities, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency in the face of adversity.

MPR is strategically nestled in the Bellaire Industrial Park, less than a mile from major North-South and East-West transportation routes with easy access to industry centers in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, and others along the East Coast. According to Brown, there is a growing interest in using the waterways to transport materials due to the limited capacity and rising costs associated with trucking. Moving seventy truckloads to a single barge eliminates approximately 1,700 tons moving across the roadways.

In 2015, the company expanded its capabilities to include a dedicated terminal where frac sand, used in the hydraulic fracturing of rock, is delivered to MPR via barge and transferred to MPR Sand Terminal’s automated frac sand facility, which boasts the largest ground storage in the region. Trucks are received 24/7/365 to be live loaded on scales with impressive six-to-nine-minute load times.

“What is exceptional about MPR is our operational capabilities coupled with state-of-the-art equipment and the ability to unload or load barges around the clock. Our expanded dock is over 850’ long, allowing continuous feed to our storage facilities,” Brown states.

The company revealed a new fifty-acre riverfront expansion earlier this year that forms part of a greater collaboration with assistance from JobsOhio, OhioSE, the Belmont County Port Authority, and others, for a total investment of $9.5 million. The expansion is also in the Bellaire Industrial Park, only one-half mile south of MPR’s current location – a stone’s throw from interstates I-470 and I-70 – and possesses two large warehouses with room for additional development.

The projected development of this property, with help from JobsOhio; OMEGA; Appalachian Growth Capital; the Ohio Rail Development Commission; and WesBanco, comprises the addition of rail facilities with the capability to hold a unit train. Brown stresses that the property is unique because it not only has river access, but frontage on both the Wheeling & Lake Erie (Class II) and Norfolk Southern (Class I) railways that converge on the site. The expansion will allow MPR to facilitate transloading from river to rail and from rail to river.

“This expansion is not only going to provide additional jobs and renewed development along the river, but it’s absolutely going to move us closer to our region once again being seen as a nexus of industry in this latest push toward updating our nation’s infrastructure,” says Brown, who also noted that this is, “… inviting to new customers coming to the area,” as well as opening the possibility of joint ventures with MPR.

While Belmont County was historically known for its agricultural and industrial economy, recessions and factors like changing global supply chains caused their share of misfortune. The county watched its traditional high earners like steel mills, power plants, and the bulk of its coal mines being driven to extinction over three decades and turned its sights toward energy, oil, and gas for economic survival. Gargantuan investments in these sectors as well as in river transportation and fiber optics are returning jobs to its people and, as a result, prosperity to this fast-growing, rural gem.

The post Prosperity through Connectivity<p class="company">Belmont County Port Authority</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Located just thirty miles from Manhattan, Stamford is an ideal choice for young adults who want to remain close to the lifestyle that only New York City can provide. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an enormous influx of new residents from the New York area.

The country’s most populous city has undergone a mass exodus, and many of these people have chosen Stamford for its proximity to New York, as well as its recreational opportunities, and its high safety ranking within the state. For these reasons, the city has seen its median age drop down quite a bit as roughly 25,000 people moved into the Fairfield County region.

“We’ve continued our apartment growth, and that’s really what led to the large population growth that we had here in Stamford,” explains Stamford Director of Economic Development Thomas Madden. In addition to its population growth, large companies have decided to set up here recently as well. “We’re finding now that companies are starting to chase the workforce, and the workforce has moved up to Stamford, so we’ve got companies following that workforce, which is kind of neat.”

To support the developing workforce, the city has programs specifically designed for the needs of local businesses. A new program called TechFWD was launched by the Ferguson Library and the Stamford Partnership to provide free courses to improve digital skills. Offering quality training and certifications, its two courses, ‘Content Marketing’ and ‘Grow With Google,’ offer people the opportunity to start a new career pathway in the growing digital sector. The program has piqued the interest of a few companies that are now hoping to sponsor it because it provides a sustainable workforce pipeline.

An exciting new program at the high school level has opened new possibilities for students. “We just got approval from the state to allow high school course credits for non-traditional internships. These are kids that may not choose the college or university route, but we will get them high school credits and get them into an internship leading to either an apprenticeship or a job right out of high school as well,” says Madden.

Besides the residential growth and workforce development, another reason businesses are choosing Stamford to start or relocate is the concierge service package offered by the city. The service is designed to make adjusting as easy as possible for any new company. From the building permit process and the zoning board to setting up meeting spaces and bringing in state services when necessary, the city provides resources and support every step of the way.

Businesses are also choosing Stamford for the same reason as residents, simply because it is a great place to live. Its location provides all the facilities and services of larger cities, combined with much more space and safety. “We are one of the safest cities within the New England region, and that’s really attributed to the great neighborhoods we have,” says Madden. “We have very proactive policing, and they are very much community-minded, which does a great job in making sure that we have a very low crime rate here.”

An abundance of recreational options are found across its parks and beaches because it is situated along the Long Island Sound, a tidal estuary between Connecticut and Long Island, New York, and the water plays a big part in the choice to move here for many people. The restaurant scene is also a bonus, as there are options for every kind of food.

A few of its restaurants have even garnered some fame on Instagram. Elm Street Diner’s great food is incredibly photo-worthy. Stillwater Sandwich Shoppe recently received attention when the woman with the largest mouth, according to the Guinness World Records, was able to put one of their enormous sandwiches in her mouth.

A large part of the economy in Stamford relies on tourism, and clearly, this was an industry heavily impacted by the pandemic. The city has recently seen tourism pick back up and its hotels are beginning to return to a normal state. Next year, it hopes to receive some tourism grant money to add more promotions that demonstrate all there is to be enjoyed in the area.

The city invested a lot of its money from the CARES Act into its infrastructure to support the continued expansion of the city, and fortunately, its infrastructure is keeping pace with its population and business growth. “The mayor has been really instrumental with making sure that we’re spending the right money, especially on our roadway systems. It’s been the right road at the right time and the right cost. His fiduciary responsibility is to make sure that the city continues on its path and keeps its AAA bond rating,” says Madden, referring to the previous mayor, David R. Martin. Stamford’s new mayor, Caroline Simmons, was just sworn in on December 1.

With all of the growth and relocation, there are many exciting developments to discuss. One new project is the Data Science Institute, a partnership between the University of Connecticut, entrepreneurial support network CTNext, and the city’s non-profit business collaborative StamfordNext to lead the way for Stamford to become the next big hub for technology and innovation. It will feature a technology incubator focused on data science and a startup studio for undergraduates to serve as a collaborative educational experience.

“We’ve had some great companies move in here to help solidify everything. Tomo Networks just set up here; the online mortgage company, Digital Currency Group just located here. They moved two of their locations out of NYC,” Madden says. “We have point pickup, which is a third-party delivery service, and we’ve got Amazon that’s looking to locate here.”

Although somewhat slowed by the pandemic, the city is continuing to work on its autonomous vehicle zone since it was chosen by the state as one of the test spaces. It is also following through with plans to develop one of the first interstate drone highways from Connecticut to New York.

On a side note, another sector that continues to see growth is the film industry. The high streaming and broadcasting capabilities here have increased the number of digital media and entertainment companies in the area. Just this summer, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne were in Stamford shooting for The Good Nurse, and it looks as though this trend is only expected to grow. Other recent media productions include The Noel Diary, a Disney movie called Baskets, a Stephen King novella featuring Donald Sutherland, and a vast number of commercials.

With NBC Sports Group here, all of the Olympics footage broadcast by NBC Sports comes through every four years. This summer, NBC Sports brought approximately 1100 people into the city to help produce the Olympics. Other longstanding media companies in the city include The People’s Court, Maury, and the Steve Wilkos Show.

Stamford is officially the second-largest city within Connecticut as it has now outgrown New Haven. It is operating at a ninety-seven percent occupancy rate in its multi-family apartment buildings and is ranked second in Fairfield County in housing sales. In roughly two years, the population grew from 126,000 to 135,470, and the city has done an impressive job of keeping up with its growth in terms of infrastructure and workforce development.

“We’ve grown quite a bit, and I would think that we’re actually over 136,400 people just because of the new apartment buildings that have opened up,” Madden estimates. “We expect to grow more over the next five years, and I suspect that we will be moving into the 140,000s over the next three years as we get more apartment buildings opening up.”

The clear reason for such expansion within the city is that Stamford truly has it all. It is filled with the amenities that families and businesses want, and it provides real support to the community. “This administration has worked really hard over the last eight years to make sure we’re fulfilling the needs of our residents as well as the business community.”

The post On Track for Continued Growth in the New Hub of Technology and Innovation<p class="company">City of Stamford, CT</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Sweetwater County is home to the largest natural soda ash mine and production site on the planet. Operated by Genesis Alkali, the site is one the few in the world to produce soda ash naturally. “The rest of the world produces it through a chemical process,” explains David Caplan, Director of Communications for Genesis Alkali. He adds that the soda ash produced in Sweetwater County is “much more environmentally friendly,” because “we don’t use nearly the energy that the synthetic method involves.”

Soda ash, derived from trona, is a necessary ingredient in glass production, making Sweetwater County’s trona mines critical to the global glass supply. “About fifty percent of all the soda ash we make ends up going to glass makers all around the world,” Caplan says of the Genesis Alkali site. “They [use it to] make all kinds of glass—for car windshields, for buildings, for bottles, anything you can imagine that’s made out of glass. [Soda ash is] a very necessary ingredient in today’s world because we couldn’t survive without glass for very long.”

Genesis Alkali is currently expanding its Granger facility to create a next-generation mining operation that will utilize special technology created and patented by the company. The expansion will boost the community economically “in a time when we really need it, particularly in Wyoming with the coal industry really dissipating,” says Joe Vasco, Venture Manager for the $350 million project.

The construction phase will continue into 2023 and create approximately 350 jobs. “Having that many folks working here in Sweetwater County, obviously, that’s a huge economic impact,” Vasco points out. “They live here, so you know they’re spending the dollars here, so they’re boosting the economy here.” Once the facility is fully expanded, the site will employ around 125 permanent employees. “Those are fulltime, good jobs for this area,” Vasco says. “That’s a boost to the county and, really, the state of Wyoming.”

The company’s new technology will dissolve and pump trona to the surface, instead of having to send workers underground to mine it. “This site will be completely solution-fed,” Vasco says. “There’re no folks underground. 1.3 million tons would come strictly from solution processing technology that we created and patented.”

Caplan adds that, “If we look out into the future—twenty, fifty years from now, a hundred years from now—making soda ash this way with the water we pump down into these underground mines with no miners underground anymore—that really is the wave of the future. That’s how soda ash will be made decades from now, and we’re doing it right now. We’re pioneering this technology.”

The advantage is economic. “You take away a lot of the fixed costs and variable costs associated with hard-rock mining,” Vasco says. “You trade it for pumping costs, which is more cost-effective. At the end of the day, [it] is a very cost-competitive business that will be here for the long haul.”

Genesis Alkali is not the only operation that sees big potential in Sweetwater County’s trona deposits. The Pacific and Atlantic Soda Company is currently in the proposal phase of developing a trona facility in Sweetwater County. Ciner’s trona mine has recently been approved for a major expansion and construction is slated to begin in the near future.

In addition, Sweetwater County’s airport is undergoing renovations, making travel in and out of the area easier for people looking to do business here.

Sweetwater County managed to overcome the pandemic’s economic challenges by coming together as a community. “We’re very resilient here,” says Kayla McDonald, economic development specialist of the Sweetwater EDC. “We’re very community-focused. When businesses were struggling, everybody rallied together to support one another. We had several businesses that were facing critical shutdown—small businesses—and the community supported them to help them get through.”

McDonald goes on to explain that COVID “taught our community to be more proactive in working together and finding that synergy,” and that Sweetwater County has become “very self-sufficient.” For example, the county embraced a diversification initiative originally proposed by the state of Wyoming and took it to the next level. “They identified sites within the state that would be energy hubs or innovation areas, and Sweetwater County took that initiative, and we started doing our own research and identified our own sites,” McDonald says.

As a result, the county is now on phase two of the development of thousands of acres located near the airport on Middle Baxter Road. Currently, Sweetwater County is seeking a state grant for a feasibility study to determine the site’s potential as a renewable energy hub for the region. The next step in the process will include looking at partnerships with companies in target industries.

Sweetwater County recently submitted a proposal for the chance to locate the State of Wyoming’s first nuclear reactor project. In November, TerraPower announced Kemmerer, Wyoming as the preferred site for the Natrium™ reactor demonstration project, which is a TerraPower and GE-Hitachi technology, and is one of two competitively-selected advanced reactor demonstration projects (ARDP) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Sweetwater County will be a key component to this project announcement with Kemmerer being located in Lincoln County, which is about an hour away from Sweetwater County.

McDonald says, “We expect to see some economic impact from this project once it is operational. We also believe that our skilled workforce will be instrumental in aiding in filling jobs and skills needed to help fill the employment gaps.”

Sweetwater County’s potential for attracting new projects goes far beyond nuclear power due to its skilled, qualified workers. “We have a strong workforce,” says Eric Bingham, Land Use Director for the Sweetwater EDC. “They could move into a manufacturing-type facility with the skills that they have here locally. That’s always the key with business attraction and development.”

Western Wyoming Community College is particularly focused on workforce training and development. “Our community college is right in the top ten in the nation in community colleges,” McDonald says. “They actually have industry programs… They have onsite training for anybody. So if you’re working in the trona mine or in the coalmine and you need additional education, our community college partners with existing industry to get their employees educated, to go through the proper training.”

Additionally, the Southwest Manufacturing Partnership, established in 2018 by the mining industry and other partners, offers a certificate program through the community college “to help the pipeline of operators through the different mines around here,” McDonald says. “So basically, it’s one certificate, and those students that go through that training are a hundred percent placed within one of those industries. So they can get hired on immediately at a trona [facility] or out at our phosphate plant and immediately can start with a ninety-day probationary period with an option to hire… Our college is very apt to assist wherever industry needs, and that’s their direction going forward—to help grow those programs so if we do need to quickly turn around training times for any kind of a future industry and diversification, then we have that ability.”

Sweetwater County is eager to keep moving forward to ensure a prosperous future for the entire community. “We’re learning to be very proactive and not just wait for the next big thing to happen,” McDonald says. “We actually want to lead it.”

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With the goal of bringing together the private and public sectors for positive change and driving a strategic direction, the Dickinson Area Economic Development Alliance (DAEDA) is led by Lois Ellis. Executive Director of the Alliance for four years now, she says some area companies in the county were founded by families decades ago, and work alongside other businesses in the spirit of camaraderie.

“That sentiment still exists, and there’s a connection because it is such a manufacturing-based community,” she says. “We all know how important it is for the local economy, and most everyone is willing to help when there is a need.”

Community involvement
For the many employees at Systems Control, created in 1962, and BOSS Snowplow, which started manufacturing in Iron Mountain in 1985, long-time employment in these companies is much more than a job; it’s a way of life. Key companies both, these businesses play an integral role in the county’s economic and community fabric.

BOSS Snowplow is a leader in the snow and ice management sector. BOSS is owned by respected manufacturer, The Toro Company of Bloomington, Minnesota. Systems Control is a best-in-class designer/manufacturer of control panels and electrical substation equipment for the transmission and distribution industry. Both businesses are based in Dickinson County’s seat of Iron Mountain, MI, and were owned, at one point, by the same family.

Going beyond the customary donations to local charitable entities, Systems Control and the Northern Lights YMCA Dickinson Center recently renewed an existing partnership with Little Sparks Child Care Center. Formed in 2018, the partnership is now extended through 2024. This will ensure parents have the finest child-care services available for their young ones.

“We are the primary sponsor,” says Systems Control CEO Brad Lebouef. “Not only revitalizing its facility, the YMCA also offers much-needed daycare services which are welcomed by people in the community and our employees. As this program evolves, the goal is to have expanded hours to assist our off-shift families. I think that speaks to the community,” says Lebouef. With the company for 20 years – four of them as CEO – Lebouef says Systems Control has always been a believer in giving back.

In September, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for the new Imagination Factory Children’s Museum in Iron Mountain. Undergoing two years of renovation and exhibit installations, the Museum – with manufacturing exhibits relating to local industries – has already welcomed thousands of guests.

An important part of the community, the Museum benefitted from over 300 financial donations, and features displays from BOSS, Systems Control, and other companies. “The museum reflects our community makeup and provides another way to connect our community to the economy,” says Ellis of the resource and its value to parents and children alike.

Local loyalty
With a population of about 25,000, Dickinson County is the area’s largest economic center. Bordering Wisconsin – which draws workers to the area – the actual market-area count is closer to 35,000. Located just 100 miles from Green Bay, a large community with a population of almost 108,000, the county is well-connected to rail and to an extensive freeway system.

Thanks to its location and manufacturing legacy, Dickinson County is a popular base for existing and new businesses alike. In recent years, both BOSS Snowplow and Systems Control have made major investments in expanding their footprint.

In 2005, the same facility housed both companies. The next year, Systems Control bought a new facility, which today measures over 400,000 square feet following several additions, including one in 2018.

“Demand is strong, and the brand and reputation we’ve built in the market is the top brand,” says Lebouef of the expansions. With about 750 employees, Systems Control recently acquired a second facility in Des Moines to meet customer demand. “If I could right now, I’d take 100 production employees,” says Lebouef of the need for additional workers. To aid in attraction, we are now providing area-leading starting wages for production employees.”

Much like Systems Control, BOSS Snowplow has also undergone multiple expansions, including an added 44,000 square feet to the north of its existing building for a new powder coating system, and another 19,000 square feet on the south to expand its machine area.

Investing over a million dollars into its product development lab – a research and development facility – the company recently broke ground on an office expansion which will more than double its existing office space.

“We are pretty excited about the investment BOSS and Toro have made into the community here and the facility at Iron Mountain,” says Jody Christy, Vice President of the BOSS products division. With over 400 staff, BOSS is the biggest single brand of snow and ice removal equipment in North America, with exports to Europe, Asia, Australia, and other countries.

Addressing challenges
Like many other area manufacturers, BOSS and Systems Control are experiencing a shortage of workers, which has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One way the county and the DAEDA are addressing the issue of attracting and retaining employees is by building a talent pipeline, raising awareness about good, well-paying careers in the community, and reaching young people in K-12 by helping them match education opportunities to available careers.

In this way, they can sustain the community members, instead of them having turn elsewhere for jobs. Their efforts include setting up task forces on talent and education, marketing and branding.

“We make a lot of educational efforts to help people understand that a four-year degree isn’t always the best path for every student,” says Ellis, “and that there are other options to have wonderful careers where you can grow and have financial rewards that can make a very nice life for yourself.”

An example of community outreach is the annual Virtual Heavy Metal Tours Manufacturing Day Event for ninth graders held in October, a month-long social campaign for manufacturing, and virtual legislative visits with leaders at the state capitol.

In 2020, this saw the collaboration of five companies, along with Bay West, Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District (DIISD), and the MichiganWorks! Association, which focuses on advancing prosperity through a skilled workforce.

Reaching out to schools in the area, some manufacturers have created partnerships with a vocational center, focusing on much-needed skills like welding and electrical wiring. A number are working with Bay College to help augment skill sets, with a special certificate for welding.

“A lot of it is about awareness, and we are pushing at the middle and high school levels to really break the tie between manufacturing not being a career and being a dirty and grungy job, and I think we are a good example of that,” says Lebouef.

Even with much manufacturing growth in Dickinson County, other companies like BOSS have had to expand their coverage for new talent and are reaching out beyond the county’s boundaries through job fairs and other means.

There are, according to Christy, lots of available opportunities for production and professional positions alike. “You can have a great career and quality of life where you grew up,” he says.

With workplace flexibility on offer, some staff can work from home, which allows BOSS to broaden its geographic reach.

Area investment
From healthcare to re-invigorating its downtowns, Dickinson County is actively ensuring an outstanding quality of life for its residents.

Recently, the county announced a planned partnership between the Dickinson County Healthcare System and the Marshfield Clinic, which will see the construction of a new game-changing cancer center.

“It’s exciting to see,” says Ellis. “The Marshfield partnership will bring even better healthcare opportunities to our community than we have today.” Healthcare is a large segment of the economy, she adds, with the county having a sizable hospital and a full federal VA Medical Center.

“Veterans come from all over the region to be treated here, and they locate here, because it is accessible to them.”

Along with healthcare, the county’s downtowns are undergoing a revitalization. To maximize space, upper stories of some buildings are being converted into apartments, located near restaurants, cafés and retail shops. Additionally, a new Marriott hotel of about 100 rooms will be built in 2022, adding more investment into the downtown areas.

From its downtowns to a growing trail network, a new dermatology clinic, investment in parks and playgrounds, a ski jump for World Cup events, a convenient airport and much more, Dickinson County is on the rise.

Underlining its growth, the county recently welcomed a new hunting-products manufacturer, drawn by the many nature activities the area offers.

To ensure the county keeps meeting the needs of its many companies, the Dickinson Area Economic Development Alliance conducts an annual survey of area manufacturers to get a sense of job demands for the coming five years.

The last survey revealed a need for about 750 more employees – many of them in production – to accommodate both retirement figures and growth.

“There’s a manufacturing heritage in this community, and the workforce shows that in its commitment and work ethic,” says Ellis. “It’s a working person’s town, and that’s reflected in the services available. Many of our businesses are open 24 hours because of the shift work. So when it’s in your DNA, it’s something you do really well, and it bodes well for our future.”

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