The county’s big picture growth strategy is achieved in various ways. In its efforts to draw and retain private investment, the Wells County Economic Development Corporation (WCEDC) focuses on continuous infrastructure improvements while actively reaching out to prospective new arrivals who are handsomely incentivized to establish themselves here. The cumulative outcome of the corporation’s economic development efforts has been a significant improvement in local utility supply, transportation infrastructure, and broadband connectivity.

With shovel-ready sites, Wells County’s location, infrastructure, and access to major transportation veins all contribute to its appeal as a future-forward location with the means and business savvy needed for further development.

Where business booms
Home to around 10,000 people, its county seat, the City of Bluffton, was once a gas boom town and one of the first to have paved roads, leading it to become known as “The Parlor City” for being “as clean as a parlor” during a time when most streets were commonly either dusty or muddy. Wells County’s other fast-growing towns include Ossian and Markle, amongst others. And while its communities are expanding at an impressive rate, the county really takes care of prospective businesses looking to relocate here by providing state-based, dollar-for-dollar cashback credits and a county-based relocation cost abatement and workforce assistance, plus low equipment investment taxation.

As a result, Bluffton, Ossian, and Markle have seen impressive changes over the past few years. Poised for the significant growth of its industrial park, workforce, and wages, the town of Ossian is proud of two new housing developments that are underway as a result of a powerful regional economic upsurge.

Moreover, the state’s fastest-growing town, Markle, is known for its beauty and higher wages. Markle also happens to be divided by the borderline of the counties of Wells and Huntington. The happy outcome is that, with fabricators relocating from Illinois and Michigan, much of Allen County’s growth is positively impacting Wells County.

In response to this economic boom, Wells County’s housing sector is also expanding. In particular, its section of Markle is experiencing high housing demand. With Wells County offering low taxes, a lower cost of living, and quality schools and amenities, the town of Markle has responded to the demand with a considerable housing development, of which phase one is already fully occupied. It is now moving into phase two of the project.

If you build it, they will come
In its early days, Wells County was under the management of Allen County before establishing itself as an independent entity in the late 1830s. While the town of Zanesville now also spans both counties, the friendly neighbors regularly join forces on regional advocacy and infrastructure.

Now, following the implementation of numerous well-executed strategies to develop its many sectors and overall infrastructure, leaders in logistics, agribusiness, and advanced manufacturing find Wells County an ideal location for their facilities. To accommodate growing demand from industry, Bluffton Industrial Park is working on a new 100-megawatt electrical capacity that will be rolled out in 2028 alongside its existing 249 acres of available land.

The county has also invested $16 million in its water supply and other infrastructure, with a specific focus on improving food production capacity. Ossian’s industrial park has had significant drainage improvements to improve the quality of its shovel-ready sites within five miles of local railway access, and the town also has large-scale electricity and natural gas infrastructure in place.

Of course, it helps that the local workforce has a longstanding reputation for being particularly industrious. Public statistics show just under 20,000 resident workers, of whom just under 15,000 live and work in the county, with nearly 2,700 commuters entering the county daily from elsewhere, actively contributing to the local economy.

As a result, forward-thinking businesses choose Wells County for its capable workforce, integrated and proactive leadership models, competitive overhead costs, and quality of infrastructure. Wells County is also superbly accessible. Situated right on Interstate 69, and connected to U.S. Highways SR1 and 224, the county has direct routes to all corners of the United States, within a day’s truck drive of around half the American population.

It also has international access to important ports on the Great Lakes at Indiana-Burns Harbor; in Toledo, around two hours away; and in Detroit, roughly three hours away. Its dependable rail service offers national connectivity, and Wayne County Airport, Detroit Metropolitan, Indianapolis International Airport, and Fort Wayne International Airport are all within a three-hour drive.

Amenities for all
Committed to creating quality of place, Mayor Scott Mentzer is leading with the idea that for communities to remain healthy, they must have access to what he calls good, safe, and affordable “third places”—places beyond work environments and home—where people gather and meet. “I think we’ve become isolated. And I’m trying to create momentum about breaking down that isolation and having people gather again, connect again, and create connectivity,” Mayor Mentzer says.

“The quality of our public places signals what we believe we deserve,” he adds. Based on this maxim, the county is continuously recreating itself in ways that make people want to stay.

One such new landmark amenity is the Wells County Community Aquatic Park in Bluffton. As a county-wide effort, the park was funded by a number of visionary stakeholders and designed to be accessible to all demographics, with a design that is modern, fun, and packed with activities. The best part is that it is unbelievably popular, with attendance in the first weeks surpassing the previous year’s visitors’ volumes of its original 51-year-old swimming pool by 40 percent. This year to date, it has gifted 3,600 tickets sponsored by generous business owners to local residents.

The generous people of Wells County also ensure that every child has access to all its wonderful amenities and extra-curricular opportunities. The Wells County Foundation assists families in covering the costs of children’s participation in sport, the arts, and school activities, while other organizations with similar missions include Women in Leadership, The Women of Light, and the Wells County Chamber of Commerce.

Furthermore, the economic development team also endeavors to provide the local workforce with quality job opportunities. These efforts include preempting investors’ workforce needs and curating and developing local talent through workforce training and related partnerships in ways that complement prevailing industries.

Diversifying the economy
In the process, the team is looking to further expand the county’s economic prospects by diversifying its industrial profile. By focusing on providing suitable sites with high-volume water and power supply and other business resources, it aims to draw more companies serving the defense, agricultural technology, and aerospace industries.

“With our collaboration with local governments and utility partners, we have improved transportation, utility, broadband, and shovel-ready sites to keep supporting our growth,” says Jessica Beste, Director of Economic Development.

As a historically agricultural region, a considerable part of Wells County’s existing gross domestic product is derived from crops like wheat and soybeans and their subsequent food processing facilities and value-added agricultural products and services.

Thanks to its expansive technical education offerings, strong logistics and storage industries, and accessibility, alongside generational fabrication expertise, advanced manufacturing, precision machining, and cleanroom facilities, medical fabrication has also found a comfortable home here. From automotive OEMs and metal and plastic fabrication to wood and food production, Wells County is known for innovation and a proud tradition of craftsmanship.

Building the future
As the region continues growing, expediting housing development and redevelopment is a priority, as is providing affordable childcare in order to maintain its workforce as a family-oriented region. To this end, two three-year aid pilot programs assist families with childcare bills from state-registered providers. On the trishare plan, one-third of the cost is settled from regional Northeast Indiana funds, while employers cover one-third and employees another. On the coshare plan, higher-income employees equally divide the cost of childcare with their employers.

In the county’s bid to provide sufficient, quality affordable housing, the WCEDC collaborates with multiple stakeholders on work that dovetails with establishing its Skilled Workforce Pipeline. As part of this initiative, students from the school districts of Bluffton-Harrison, Southern Wells Community Schools, and Norwell Community Schools all receive a K-12 education informed by local business requirements to ensure that they develop the necessary academic and technical acumen they need before choosing from a selection of post-secondary institutions where they can further their studies.

“While industries evolve and markets change, one thing that has remained constant in Wells County is our culture of people who believe in building for the next generation. That commitment to innovation, stewardship, and community is what continues to make Wells County a place where businesses don’t just locate to, but they put down roots and grow. Wells County Economic Development (WCEDC) is proud of that,” says Beste.

As part of the development of adult learners and young students alike, the corporation has built alliances with local trade schools and colleges and the towns of Southern Wells, Norwell, and Bluffton Harrison, alongside Area 18 Career & Technical Education (CTE), which has proven tremendously successful over the past half-decade. The greater education system also accommodates employer engagement through curated training, apprenticeships, internships, and other means.

As Indiana’s biggest, this local CTE cooperative provides students with current, industry-relevant training and experience. High standards are maintained by interest groups engaging directly with industry and collecting relevant information, which is then processed and applied in coursework to ensure that student education remains relevant and in stride with the times.

A separate exploratory group gathers all manufacturers in Wells County to identify areas for improvement in employee education, and the CTE cooperative responds with relevant training for students and employees. This is followed by on-site, hands-on skills training in local manufacturing facilities.

The organization also gives students from eight high schools across Wells, Blackford, Jay, and Adams counties the opportunity to earn dual college credit and industry certifications toward their qualifications. There were 6,007 students enrolled in the program for the 2025-26 school year, with areas of study including Public Safety, Business, Agriculture, Health Sciences, Information Technology, Automotive Technology, Construction Trades, Precision Machining, Welding, and Advanced Manufacturing.

Beyond its school districts, Wells County benefits from Northeast Indiana’s wide choice of post-secondary institutions. These include Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana University Fort Wayne, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Indiana Wesleyan University, Huntington University, Manchester University, Indiana Tech, Trine University, and the University of Saint Francis. Considering the vast selection of study fields these schools collectively offer, Wells County residents enjoy incredibly high standards of education, especially for a rural community.

The WCEDC has partnered with Adams Wells Manufacturing Alliance (AWMA) to conduct convocation days, career exploration, and readiness with the area’s schools. WCEDC also hosts influencer tours and manufacturing day tours, and collaborates with AREA 18 to provide career readiness and internships, while the local Chamber of Commerce hosts career expos.

Northeast Indiana is not all about work, however. It also invests generously in the development of the arts, as proven recently when a combined $65 million in READI 2.0 Arts and Culture grants were awarded to nearly 50 statewide projects from Lilly Endowment funds. Sources claim that these projects are forecasted to earn the local arts economy just under $370 million. Northeast Indiana received just short of $11 million of the overall grant for six projects, one of which, the Parlor City Digital Projection, was initiated in the city of Bluffton. A permanent digital installation used as a regional arts and mapping tool is being projected onto the front of one of its oldest buildings. The project received $354,062 from the READI Award and cost around $478,000.

The WCEDC is clear regarding its vision for the future, and with so many incredible partners on board, the path ahead looks promising. As Beste says, “Wells County Economic Development Corporation believes economic development is about creating a future worth investing in. We are committed to supporting responsible growth, expanding opportunities, strengthening our workforce, and building communities where businesses succeed, families thrive, and future generations choose to stay, return, and invest.”

The post Rooted in Community, Driven by Progress<p class="company">Wells County Economic Development</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

In his book, Hightower discusses the countless lessons he learned from his parents while working for their janitorial company—navigating racial barriers, financial hurdles, and underscoring the importance of keeping your word to employees, industry partners, and customers. “There are a lot of people who want to be in business but don’t really know how, and don’t think that it’s possible,” he shares. “Having been in business my entire life, I just thought that, at my age, I need to leave something behind.”

Prior to building his petroleum business from scratch, Hightower worked at his mother and father’s business, Hightower’s Janitorial Service, in the Middletown, Ohio area. Before he even entered his teens, Steve Hightower showed up at work early on as a child with his Mother and Father, cleaning offices and commercial and residential properties. By the time he was 16, he was a crew leader with adults working under him. Ambitious and with an eye on the future, the young entrepreneur grew the family janitorial business from Middletown to Dayton, Cincinnati, and then statewide. “I was that generation who took a baseline family business and developed it into something more,” he says.

From fundamentals to finance
Watching his parents closely—and accustomed to hard work as a youngster—Hightower was a fast learner. Even today, he believes you need to create a solid foundation to be successful, no matter the enterprise. “Business is basic; you have to understand finance, pay your bills, and know how to invoice,” he states. “And whatever product or service you are offering, that has to be delivered, and delivered on time. Get a product that a company has to have to execute, versus a product that people may want to have—product that is moving every day even while you sleep.” He cites the supply chains of paint (“without resin, there is no paint”), gasoline (“without crude oil, refineries would shut down”), and consumer goods (“you can’t ship or sell without packaging) as examples. Critically, Hightower says, “Trust is built, not assumed! People have to know that they can trust you, and it always helps if they like you.”

Taking on more responsibility managing others, Hightower grew the janitorial business and connected with big players. This included selling industrial materials to the Ford Motor Company in Sharonville. He took advantage of a statewide program, HB: 584, which afforded companies owned by persons of African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian descent the ability to bid on certain contracts in Ohio. Other opportunities presented themselves, and Hightower pursued more procurement contracts. This included a huge opportunity when Landmark Supply Co LTD, wholly owned by Steve, bid a fuel contract which energy giant BP had held for 32 years.

Hightower knew how to find a supplier. “If you have an opportunity big enough, you can find a supplier for it, as long as he knows he can be paid,” he says. His first fuel contract was for the entire State of Ohio in 1982, and to this day, Hightower credits the late Don Lykins of Lykins Oil, who quoted him as his supplier, providing product and a credit instrument that secured the sale to the state of Ohio.

The contract revealed Hightower’s confidence. “I did not know anything about petroleum. I did not come from the industry, I did not work for a petroleum company,” he says. “And at that particular time, he remembers saying to his people—even though it was only two or three people at the time—‘Whatever our part, we need to do that well.’ “Thus the beginning of learning the business.

Thanks to Lykins, Hightower learned about a credit instrument that allowed the company to gain credit by utilizing a “lockbox.” This, he says, was the key to his ability to grow in the business, because he could secure funding to his suppliers by having customers send checks to the bank’s lockbox; once the check arrived, the bank was instructed to send the money to the supplier, i.e. Lykins, initially under the name of Landmark supply Co LTD.

“The bank had no liability, because they only had instructions to transfer the dollars to my supplier,” he says. “I could not get a bank loan for petroleum. None of the local banks would trust me to be in the oil business. To them I was just a janitor… I was told by a diversity professional of a construction company in Cincinnati to stay in my lane. How I was able to get to doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in business was through the use of the lockbox.”

Hightowers Petroleum continued to grow, and the business reached $235 million after many years, before HPC got its first commercial bank loan. “No one believed that I should be in the petroleum business, but you learn how to manage with what you have. You’ve got to be creative, and you’ve got to deliver, and most importantly you have to have the courage to succeed. We were able to deliver, and that’s how I really got started.”

The evolution of energy
Following the initial contract years later with the State of Ohio, the company was called to Cleveland and won an opportunity to haul jet fuel to Government locations BP was fulfilling. “They selected us to become a ‘Contract Carrier’ for BP after they supported and help secured our PUCO (Public Utilities Commission of Ohio) status, which allowed the company to transport jet fuel to various government entities within the state for BP.” It was at that point that Steve incorporated “Hightowers Petroleum Company” in 1984 and had the credentials to officially be in the fuel industry.

Today, Hightowers Petroleum remains a leader in energy solutions. A safe, environmentally responsible wholesale fuel supplier, the company’s reputation is unparalleled, with a 99.9 percent on-time delivery rate. The company’s Focused Energy Model is unique and “designed to minimize energy spend, maximize energy efficiencies, and optimize your company’s success by having a trusted single source manage all of your energy requirements.”

Establishing its reputation as a trusted supplier of traditional fuels in the downstream such as gasoline and diesel fuels, today the company is moving upstream to include crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and supplemental products such as diesel exhaust fuel (DEF), additives, and lubricants. Hightowers Petroleum keeps investing in the future of energy. Our “HPC Mastercard® Fleet Card” is nationwide serving every state in the USA with discounts at the pump for our commercial customers, both fleet and Class A vehicles,” says Hightower. “Additionally, we follow our customers and provide alternative fuels which include renewable diesel and hydrogen for fleets produced on site; emerging technologies such as nano nuclear reactors; small-scale reactors; carbon credits; and electric vehicle (EV) charging station infrastructure,” he says.

“EV is a Johnny-come-lately,” says Hightower. It is a piece of the company’s automotive business, which includes General Motors, Volvo, Nissan, and Mack Trucks. “When your automotive customers are moving toward EV and electric, you don’t want to be the last horse and buggy on the street, so you get ahead of the game. That’s why we went toward EV.”

The company’s construction arm, Hightower EV Solutions, is growing in response. Currently, there are 15 or 16 major turnkey EV installations going on across the country, from California to New York to Miami. This work comprises installing EV charging stations, infrastructure, charging stations, and electrical upgrades. “That’s where we’ve done very well with Hightower EV Solutions, and it is growing quite rapidly,” says Hightower. The company also owns the software for many EV stations and provides 24/7 maintenance service to customers.

Navigating change
Even with the current global uncertainty surrounding petroleum because of the closures at the Strait of Hormuz, business remains solid. “The good thing about this industry is whether its crude oil, gasoline, or diesel, they need to have it,” says Hightower. “Price might be a factor, but you’ve got to pay it anyway, because you need it for your refineries. Refineries can’t shut down.” The price of freight has gone up from $2 to $12, and the product has increased from $45 to $50 dollars a barrel to $100 to $110. “Instability has its challenges, however it also has its opportunities. It’s time to lean in, not put your head down, but to ‘step up.’” Hightower is moving full force in the upstream opportunities created that were not available prior to this disruption.

While this has caused plenty of conflict and confusion in the petroleum industry, it has also created opportunities. “We look at it from an opportunity standpoint, and basically just lean into the situation and continue the route we were on, namely maintaining and managing our downstream customers on a daily basis.” With a presence in every state in the continental U.S., Hightowers Petroleum is also entering Puerto Rico and Hawaii. To achieve this in the downstream, Hightower and his team are buying product throughout the United States and managing the supply chain of carriers that carry product to almost every major city in the U.S.

“We’ve been able to do that one customer at a time,” he says. “We have hundreds of customers now, 99 percent private sector.” His philosophy is, “If you take care of your customers, your customers will take care of you. When times get hard, companies are still looking for people who will answer the phone, show up, and do what they say they’re going to do! And that’s been our success model.”

For years, Hightowers Petroleum has maintained a philosophy of going deep, not wide. The company started with fuels like gasoline and diesel long before adding EVs. Other factors behind the company’s success include MasterCard fleet cards and offering discounts to private companies with large fleets throughout the U.S. using Hightowers products and services.

Building the business on wholesale downstream fuels, Hightower says upstream, like crude oil and LNG, is totally different. A load of gasoline or diesel fuel of about 9,000 gallons going down the road is approximately $30,000 to $35,000; a load of crude oil, about one million barrels per shipment, amounts to some $85 to $100 million per shipment. “$30,000 versus $100 million? That’s a big leap for a little guy,” says Hightower, who brought in experts specializing in trading crude and upstream over the past three years. Owing to this, the company now has customers in Europe, the United Arab Emirates, and Africa.

“That’s because I continue to work in our vertical, but in a different portion within the vertical of petroleum products, and that’s where we stand today,” Hightower explains. “We are taking advantage of opportunities being posed by all of the confusion that’s going on, because we’ve got relationships with China. With our Chinese partners, we can go through the Strait of Hormuz.” And with Europe being short on crude oil, customers are looking for safe places to purchase product, and the U.S. is considered one of those safer places, as opposed to Mexico, Central and South America, or certain countries in Africa. Customers are extremely comfortable purchasing petroleum from Hightowers Petroleum.

“When you have a disruption, that, again, is opportunity. Fortunately, we worked for three years building a foundation upstream, and the environment became what it is. There is a shortage and a need, and Hightowers was well-positioned after 44 years in the petroleum industry, and able to get partners from Europe and the UAE and here in the USA. One criterion for exporting fuel or crude from the U.S. is, there needs to be a base in the U.S. Hightowers Petroleum has become that partnering business in the U.S. for about four different major corporations and has been able to execute in the market despite shortages. “The advantages we put in place allowed us to be prepared, so this was not a disaster for us. It was an opportunity, and an opportunity to succeed.”

Continuing on its path, Hightowers Petroleum recently formed a partnership with multinational giant Shell with its MasterCard fleet card. Offering some of the deepest discounts in the country, Shell took notice and partnered with Hightowers. When the fleet card was released in 1985, it was a loss leader; today, it is a very profitable part of the business.

A foundation for the future
Years after founding the business, Steve Hightower says much of his success comes down to drive, respect for customers and employees, and treating people right. “This is an industry of reputation,” he says. “It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and it takes 15 seconds to lose it. The difference is, I grew this company from scratch without basically any money, no outside investors, and no big loans available to me. Today, I am still a 100 percent owner of a C-Corp—typically, most companies today have either sold off, sold to someone else, and are not around. Longevity comes from being honest with people.”

Hightowers Petroleum’s reputation is the result of hard work, dedication, professionalism, and on-time delivery. These attributes, and others, have seen the company recognized for its work. A couple of the most recent was the Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Southwest Ohio and the “Sustainability Award” from Honda NA. competing against all of their vendors in 2026. Although this is a validation, Hightower says the company’s work in the community is just as important. Along with being active on many boards, the company also adopts classrooms and sixth graders with a program that exposes schoolchildren to the petroleum industry within classroom education and small exercises, along with field trips to learn about the oil and gas industry.

For years, Steve Hightower has championed public speaking and still carries his love of high school debate to this day. This includes taking local kids from Middletown to the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio for Youth and Government mock legislation. These are the real reasons he wrote FUELING. “They compete against other schools from across the country,” he says. “When people ask, ‘Why did you write a book?’ it’s because those kids are our next generation. I have to leave my knowledge for somebody, because none of us are going to be here forever.’” In Hightowers Petroleum, he is building a legacy to last.

The post Fueling Success<p class="company">Hightowers Petroleum</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

For business leaders, workforce partners, site selectors, entrepreneurs, and even prospective residents on the lookout for an economically progressive county, Boone County’s economic vitality has established they are here for the long haul. Recognized as Indiana’s County of the Year in 2023, its location on Interstate 65 places Boone County within 30 minutes of Indianapolis International Airport and within a day’s drive of around half of the United States population.

Boone County has strong corridor access to Interstates I-65 and I-74 as well as the ability to connect rail systems from business parks. This positioning makes transportation to and from the county just one of its many pluses for existing and prospective business partners. With significant investment in internal roads and utilities, the county’s infrastructure is becoming more modern, efficient, and able to handle the growth. Such investments further secure prospects for its well-established advanced manufacturing industry. Internationally recognized names in life sciences, such as Eli Lilly and Company, have found a home in Boone County. Eli Lilly’s investment totals nearly 18 billion dollars, one of the largest capital investments in Indiana’s history.

The area is also known for large distribution facilities, including those of international equipment giant Caterpillar and NewCold, a well-known cold storage provider. Having firmly established their presence through initial investments, both companies have now chosen to expand their footprint. In the process, Caterpillar recently established a new advanced manufacturing facility in Lebanon. Business retention and expansion is an area Boone EDC understands is of great importance when it comes to creating long lasting growth for the county.

Strategically located at the center of the state, more than half of this 108,500-hectare county remains agricultural land. Recent decades have brought strong growth and a long-term vision to create prosperity for all its communities, and as a result, the population of Boone County grew by over 70 percent to around 80,000 residents over the past 27 years, making it the second-fastest-growing county in the state of Indiana. Awash with young professionals, more than half of their over-25s hold bachelor’s degrees, rating their education status amongst Indiana’s top two counties.

One of the county’s most successful economic drivers at present is the Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace District, commonly referred to as LEAP. This powerful development is considered the United States’ largest innovation district to date. “LEAP is also a reflection of the strong partnerships that we have with our municipal partners, with the city of Lebanon and Boone County government, as well as the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC),” says Andrea Kern, CEO of Boone EDC.

LEAP investments have brought a significant boost to Boone County’s local infrastructure, in addition to each organization’s own campus. This includes the installation of a new interstate 65 interchange, internal roads, and additions to walking and biking trails. Moreover, Meta is supplying most of the water infrastructure, complete with a closed-loop water consumption system to serve its data center demands, and has taken ownership of the costs of the needed growth for electricity infrastructure. “[Electricity infrastructure] is not a cost that’s being taken on by ratepayers within the city of Lebanon or Boone County,” Kern tells us. “META has demonstrated that they are committed to being a great community partner by investing in a number of nonprofits.”

These are all large commitments, and so is Meta’s efforts to fund a workforce training program that will partner with Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC). This training promises to provide candidates with national certification and guaranteed work. META’s initial investment of 115 million dollars will power the program, called America’s Workforce Academy (AWA).

META also extended a $100,000 subsidy to Boone Power to support those unable to pay their electricity bills, while another $100,000 grant went to the Boone County Career Collaborative, allowing the county to further support its three local school districts, Lebanon, Zionsville, and Western Boone Schools, in navigating and implementing recently amended statewide graduation requirements—changes already impacting current freshmen and sophomores.

New diploma guidelines require between 75 and 650 hours of work-based learning for students. “What we’re really trying to do is help support the schools however we can and make sure that these are quality workforce learning hours. Connecting them with our businesses even comes into play with our business retention and expansion plans,” says Denise Niblick, Director of Business Engagement and Partnerships.

Niblick further highlights that making these programs optimally valuable for end users and learners is a priority. To this end, the Boone County Career Collaborative aims to provide extensive support to learners, counselors, businesses, and other stakeholders through coordinating candidates with internship opportunities and other workforce training. Its contribution also extends to resources such as funding curriculum development, work-based learning facilitation, and materials such as personal protective equipment or technology needed for students’ workforce learning experiences.

“I think you would be hard-pressed to find a county that is as willing and able and has a desire to support youth in their community as Boone County,” she continues, noting how beautiful she finds it that business owners have been proactive in reaching out to the EDC, offering their support of their own volition. It is also exciting to see a growing number of parents agreeing that many trade opportunities offer undeniably good remuneration packages—even compared with professions requiring formal tertiary education—all while accruing zero debt. It is now accepted that the sky is the limit for young people who first train in trades and choose to further their education and careers at a later stage.

Good education is, of course, just one aspect that families looking to move here consider. Making her way from downtown Lexington, Kentucky to Lebanon, Indiana in Boone County, Niblick, for one, could not be happier. As a married young professional with two children, there is a lot keeping her here, from the extensive infrastructure investments the county has made since COVID to glorious natural beauty, trails, and parks. One of Boone County’s most recent redevelopments is Carpenter Nature Preserve, a 215-acre former 18-hole golf course turned conservation destination located in Zionsville. There is also the 110-acre former Lebanon city landfill that was redeveloped into Stone Eater Bike Park, complete with five miles of all-weather and mountain biking trails for all levels of riders. With both Chicago and Indianapolis just a stone’s throw away, locals even have access to every possible big-box store and other modern resources virtually on their doorsteps.

Owning a home here also remains affordable, despite relative scarcity. For this reason, affordable housing is one of the EDC’s priorities. The median annual wage is $56,000; the standard household income is around $104,000.

More rural options for those seeking short commutes but the benefits of a small-town feeling are coming to Thorntown, and Jamestown has an estimated 300 new homes available soon. “This is not just happening in our large communities; we are trying to work with those municipalities to make sure that they are positively impacted by the growth as well,” says Kern.

Public transportation is another priority, and getting around is made easier with the Big Four Rail Trail running through the LEAP district, connecting people from Thorntown to Zionsville and with stops in Whitestown and Lebanon.

Boone County also has connections to IndyCar racing with its Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team’s headquarters in Zionsville, which saw significant investments in 2022. Another well-known sports facility, alongside the Farmers Bank Fieldhouse, is a national attraction and home to the Little League Central Region Complex in Whitestown, where visitors flock from across the Midwest to attend sports events. Of course, all event visitors bring their spending power to the area’s restaurants, hotels, and other guest establishments, dollars that have a far-reaching ripple effect throughout the county.

True to its mandate, Boone EDC continues to focus on growing and maintaining the county’s economic landscape. As part of this mission, Niblick has completed three business retention and expansion visits since starting in March. “Boone EDC has decided to really focus on and foster this. Being able to retain and help businesses with a proven track record that are already in our community, who have invested in their infrastructure here, is a huge win when you’re talking about economic development,” she says. Ensuring that such businesses have everything they need to thrive and feel supported is, therefore, at the core of much of the EDC’s work.

Whether that means helping businesses negotiate their utility costs or supporting workforce transportation issues with the help of the Central Indiana Regional Transportation System, the EDC team leverages every partnership it has to fulfill its role. In the process, the EDC considers its partnerships with key contributors such as the various Boone County and Zionsville Chambers, Community Foundation of Boone County, and others as crucial to its long-term viability. “The leadership in Boone County is in alignment with the goals that we have for the future that we see here. And that means that we’re all supportive of one another,” Kern adds.

The EDC also collaborates with Main Street organizations like the Heart of Lebanon, Jamestown Partnership, and Main Street Zionsville to build and maintain healthy small businesses that uphold lively downtown areas. Bustling with markets, public events, and other fun activities, the county is described by Niblick as a place that sticks to you, but where one is never stuck—a county full of lively activity, promise, and outstanding service provision.

And while residents have had to be patient with a high volume of construction, the sacrifice is paying off as the county grows its assets and infrastructure in ways that provide an ever-improving standard of living for all. Additionally, these expansion works have fueled the local economy and added increased demand for dining, housing, and everyday goods.

With its LEAP District still under construction and bursting at the seams with recognized names in pharma, technology, and other key sectors, this phenomenal new local resource holds tremendous promise for Boone County. While forecasts suggest it will take around three decades to develop this property to its full capacity, Kern estimates that the first real returns will provide benefits over the next five years.

Taking the county forward, the EDC is clear that this is no one-man show. “Economic development really is a team sport in Boone County. The success that we’ve seen is really driven by those strong relationships that we have with a number of organizations, such as the Boone County Chamber of Commerce and the Community Foundation of Boone County,” Kern observes. As a result, through full life-cycle support and all the networking needed to keep them running at full speed, businesses continue to boom in Boone County.

The post Booming and Proud of It<p class="company">Boone County, Indiana</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Warming a home on a cold morning can feel effortless, but it involves an intricate system most people never see. Long before natural gas reaches a home or the electrical plant that energizes that home, it travels through infrastructure that connects natural gas producers, pipeline operators, equipment manufacturers, and utilities. Across that chain, safety and reliability depend on materials, equipment, processes, and people working from common frameworks.

That same premise extends across the entire oil and natural gas industry. When companies, equipment and service suppliers, technical experts, and regulators all work with the same set of objectives using a common framework, projects move forward efficiently. And when they don’t, projects are delayed, work is duplicated, and risks escalate.

This is the essential role technical standards play. They are the shared reference points that bring consistency to a vast and diverse industry.

Since its founding more than a century ago, the American Petroleum Institute (API) has helped provide those necessary reference points. Its portfolio of more than 800 standards covers every segment of the oil and natural gas industry, underpinning the safety, quality, efficiency, and interoperability of equipment and operations that depend on consistency, even as the industry and world around them changes.

The foundational standard
In the oil and natural gas industry, the need for that kind of consistency became especially clear during World War I, when mismatched pipe sizes, threads, and couplings caused delays and equipment shortages, revealing the consequences of inconsistent technical requirements.

Pipe manufacturing offered a practical place to begin. In 1924, API published its first standard, Specifications for Steel and Iron Pipe for Oil Country Tubular Goods. More than a hundred years later, that same standard—since renamed API Specification 5L (API Spec 5L), Line Pipe, now in its 47^th edition (as of June 2026)—still provides a consistent technical baseline for the manufacturing of steel pipe used across the industry.

But API Spec 5L’s century of relevance was never inevitable. Without careful maintenance, a technical standard can become fixed in the assumptions of the era that produced it. API Spec 5L has endured because it has been revisited and strengthened as knowledge deepened, technologies advanced, and the demands on infrastructure grew. Across its 47 editions, the standard has kept pace with developments in pipe manufacturing, the shifting realities of pipeline operations, and the rising expectations placed on energy systems. Its latest edition, published in June 2026, adds important new requirements across more than 15 topics, including pipe used to transport carbon dioxide, an application its original authors could never have imagined.

That is what standards do at their best. They give the industry a disciplined, trusted way to carry accumulated experience into the challenges ahead. API Spec 5L has remained foundational for a century precisely because it was built to evolve.

The standards development process
The strength of an API standard lies not only in its technical content, but in the collaborative, consensus-based process behind its development. API is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which verifies that its development process is transparent, provides an opportunity for a balance of interested stakeholders to participate, and ensures that due process is followed.

A standard begins with a real need, such as a new technology, a regulatory demand, an operating challenge, or an emerging area existing documents do not yet address. From there, a committee of volunteer experts drafts the document through a process built on technical rigor, public review and comment, and the careful resolution of different viewpoints and objections. Depending on the complexity of the subject, that work can take months or even years. For the 47^th edition of API 5L, subject matter experts from more than a dozen countries shaped the revision, lending it both technical depth and international relevance.

While not the same as unanimity, consensus demands broad support across stakeholder categories, giving the finished standard legitimacy beyond any one participant, company, or jurisdiction. Once published, standards are reviewed and updated on a regular cycle, so they remain accurate, useful, and responsive to changing needs.

A common language for a global industry
As projects, supply chains, and regulatory systems increasingly span multiple countries, consistent technical expectations become essential. A length of line pipe may be manufactured in one country, inspected in another, and installed in a third. And operators, contractors, and regulators may each play a different part in the same project. The requirements they rely on all need to mean the same thing. Otherwise, discrepancies can delay projects, increase costs, impede trade, and introduce avoidable risk.

API standards help provide consistency on a global scale. API’s latest international usage report identified 1,395 references to API standards across 40 international markets (in laws, regulations, technical guidance, national standards, and operational manuals), a 20 percent increase since the previous report in 2022. Those markets span Europe, the Americas, Central Asia, the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

That breadth of adoption gives a fragmented global industry a single, widely recognized reference point. A manufacturer in any market can build to an API standard, and a regulator can reference existing API standards that are already being used. For operators purchasing equipment across borders, it means confidence that what they buy meets a trustworthy benchmark. And countries building or modernizing their energy infrastructure gain too, drawing on practices the global industry has already tested and refined.

In a period shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain pressure, and rising energy demand, that kind of consistency helps reinforce supply chains, improve efficiency, and manage costs, all in support of energy security.

Putting standards to work
While API standards give the industry a common foundation for safe and consistent operations, API’s Global Industry Services (GIS) division helps translate that foundation into practice through certification, training, licensing, and safety programs.

API’s certification and licensing programs help companies demonstrate that standards are being applied consistently. The API Monogram Program licenses manufacturers to apply the Monogram mark to equipment produced in conformance with applicable API standards and specifications, giving operators greater confidence in the products they purchase. The API Repair and Remanufacture Program and API Quality Registrar (APIQR) extends that same standards-based approach to repaired equipment and to companies’ quality management systems.

GIS programs also directly advance safety. The Center for Offshore Safety promotes the highest levels of safety for the U.S. offshore sector, the Process Safety Site Assessment Program sends independent experts on site to gauge the health of process safety systems in refining and petrochemicals, and the Pipeline Safety Management System Program helps operators of every size measure and improve their safety performance.

And because standards depend on the people who apply them, API Training gives professionals opportunities to build standards-based expertise through instructor-led courses, self-paced learning, customized group training, and API-approved global providers. The API Individual Certification Programs (ICP) complement that training by offering an independent way to evaluate the knowledge and experience of technical and inspection personnel. Since 1989, ICP has issued credentials that strengthen industry safety and consistency.

While these programs differ in focus, each rests on the same premise: a standard delivers its full value only when it is applied consistently.

Ready for what comes next
Throughout its history, the oil and natural gas industry has been defined by change: new technologies, shifting supply chains, and evolving operating environments. And along with each transition, expectations around safety, environmental performance, and reliability have only grown. What has remained constant is the need for common ground.

For more than a century, API standards have provided that common ground. From the first standard written to resolve the problem of mismatched pipe to a 47^th edition addressing the transport of carbon dioxide, the story of API Spec 5L is the story of standards themselves: enduring because they are built to evolve.

And wherever and however the industry moves next, API standards will continue to advance with it, providing the technical guidance needed to meet change with shared knowledge, disciplined processes, and aligned expectations.

Anchal Liddar is Senior Vice President of API’s Global Industry Services (GIS) division, where she leads global operations delivering standards, certification, training, publications, and safety programs that support safe and efficient industry performance worldwide. Prior to API, she spent nine years at The Boeing Company, holding leadership roles across supply chain, finance, and program management. She earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Irvine, and an MBA and Master of Science in Information Systems & Technology from Claremont Graduate University.

The post The Standards That Keep Energy Flowing<p class="company">American Petroleum Institute (API)</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

The council became the first contact for businesses considering moving to the area, and it found early success, drawing significant manufacturing operations to Hancock in the 1990s such as manufacturing heavyweight Avery Dennison and automotive supplier Astemo.

Mitchell Kirk, HEDC’s Communications Director for three years now, says it has been rewarding for him and everyone on the council to watch their boardroom grow. Today, the council supports 45 member organizations across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, the greatest number in its history so far.

Hancock County’s strong agricultural and rural heritage is a draw for a number of businesses that wish to grow outward from Indianapolis. Pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Elanco Animal Health had presences in the county for decades, along with local farms and a strong manufacturing sector. Hancock has also been one of the fastest-growing counties in Indiana for the past three years, with a 2.4 percent population gain last year to more than 90,000 residents. Development is also on the rise, with 1,268 single-family building permits issued last year, a 27 percent increase over the previous year.

Since 2019, HEDC has helped foster the development of 33 industrial buildings spanning a total of over 18 million square feet and $900 million in assessed value. The bulk of these buildings have been designed for logistics purposes, for which the western part of the county is particularly well-suited thanks to its abundant farmland and access to the interstate. One such project was a 2.3 million-square-foot fulfillment center for Wal-Mart—the largest built in the country at that time—so the council has definitely been kept on its toes in recent years.

Kirk explains that many of the aforementioned 33 industrial buildings were built on spec since 2019; with the pandemic, however, a big wrench was thrown into attracting tenants for these buildings. Thankfully, industrial vacancy rates in the area are decreasing, a spike in activity that is giving brokers further confidence in filling future buildings.

Although they may all have similar goals, Kirk says that economic development organizations are different from place to place. While some are more engaged in the minutiae of smaller operations, like restaurants or retail, HEDC concerns itself with quality of life (although recruitment into the local workforce is always important, too). “As the county grows, we are also able to grow and get more involved,” he says.

Indeed, HEDC has been able to grow in step with Hancock County, building its staff from just a full-time Executive Director and one part-time employee to four full-time employees. This staff increase has given the team the capacity to tackle bigger projects and take a more proactive approach to the county’s economic development. As well, its Community Development Manager is highly engaged with aspects such as housing, quality of life, and resident amenities. People used to follow jobs, Kirk says, but nowadays, many jobs follow people, and they often decide where to live based on these qualities, which is where the focus of HEDC has consistently remained.

A couple of long-term projects have been key to the council’s recent successes. The State Road 9 Innovation Corridor is an ongoing project that is envisioned as a lab-to-field-to-market ecosystem, one that will connect resource entrepreneurship with real-world application in a rural setting. The area for the corridor will be along the eponymous road on the north side of Greenfield and north to the county border.

Currently, the former Elanco property is owned by a partnership of local entities including Hancock Health, NineStar Connect, and Pride Investment Partners, all of which are working with HEDC on opportunities to establish the area as an anchor for the Corridor. Furthermore, a task force of local and state leaders and experts was recently created with the goal of further crafting this vision to accelerate area growth, and HEDC helped land an operation from West Pharmaceuticals near the Corridor.

The Amplify Hancock Innovation Center is another exciting development for HEDC that will soon take shape. It will be a facility containing a career center for high school students as well as workforce training for adults, opening in summer 2026. Kirk says that the Innovation Center bodes well for the local workforce and has attracted site selectors and businesses who are considering the area. Hancock County also has a mega site of over 1,550 acres, an area with a lot of potential. “We are excited for the potential of data centers, manufacturing operations, and a lot of undeveloped farmland,” says Kirk.

Opportunities like the Corridor and the Innovation Center are coming at an exciting time for Hancock County and HEDC, Kirk tells us. One recent opportunity came when the governor of Indiana, Mike Braun, announced a $1 billion state commitment to accelerate growth in the life sciences sector statewide, with the goal of creating 100,000 jobs over 10 years. There is also interest from local and state parties in considering Indiana and its counties part of the BioHeartland, a term used for Indiana’s unified bioscience ecosystem. This initiative is looking to create an identity and story based on the region’s unique strengths such as human/animal health, plant science, and bioscience innovation, one that will further attract new businesses and entrepreneurs.

With increased interest in data centers and manufacturing operations around Indiana, Kirk says that power and electricity for these massive operations will be a key consideration; of course, this is the case everywhere. Governor Braun is keeping an eye on the issue and has expressed interest in alternatives like developing small nuclear reactors as a potential energy source. And HEDC’s Community Development Manager has been working on a retail study with a consulting firm and with county leaders to identify gaps in the market and the best strategies for filling them.

HEDC isn’t afraid of a challenge, and the team is keen to educate community members who are not as favorable toward the kind of development it is seeking. Kirk says that this kind of pressure from concerned parties often pushes things toward a good compromise for all sides, but you never want the pendulum to push too far one way. “Growth is necessary for an area to flourish,” he says, and thus HEDC aims to continue representing the best aspects of growth, change, and opportunity for many years to come.

The post Embracing a Growth Mindset<p class="company">Hancock County Economic Development</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Based in northeast Edmonton, Alberta, QPP is a 100 percent Canadian-owned manufacturer of polyurethane pipeline pigs and pigging accessories. Its product range spans sizes from compact-diameter water and chemical lines right up to the large-diameter transmission pipelines that cross North America. The company serves customers in oil and gas, mining, water and wastewater, and industrial process sectors. And since 2016, it has operated as a subsidiary of Suncast Polytech Inc., a strategic acquisition that changed the scope of what QPP is capable of, and what it aspires to be.

What’s in a name?
The name raises eyebrows in boardrooms and on job sites alike. Tim Canete, President of Quality Polly Pig Ltd., is used to the question. “A pipeline pig is essentially a device that travels inside a pipeline, pushed along by the flowing product or by water or air, to do a job,” he says. “The main function is cleaning the inside of the pipe during new construction, for ongoing maintenance, and for prepping lines ahead of inspection.”

Beyond cleaning, pigs serve two other primary roles. Batching pigs separate different products travelling through the same pipeline so a transmission operator can move bitumen down the line one day and switch to a different fluid the next, with a pig acting as a physical buffer between the two. Foam swabs, meanwhile, are used to dewater newly constructed lines before they enter service.

QPP manufactures its pigs exclusively in polyurethane (PUR), in both solid-cast and medium-density foam configurations. The choice of material is deliberate—polyurethane is a family of materials whose properties can be tuned by adjusting prepolymers, curatives, and processing conditions.

QPP engineers select and blend formulations to suit specific duties including harder compositions for aggressive mechanical scraping, softer ones for sealing inside slightly out-of-round pipe, more chemically resistant grades for refined product lines, and highly abrasion-resistant versions for slurry applications in mining.

“Polyurethane provides the combination of properties that pigging demands,” Canete says. “It needs to be soft and flexible enough to conform to the pipe yet tough and durable enough to clean the pipe.”

Partners in success
QPP began operations in 1996. For its first two decades it operated as a focused pig manufacturer, building a reputation for quality across the Canadian oil and gas sector. The transformative moment came in 2016, when Suncast Polytech Inc., an Edmonton-based manufacturer of large-scale polyurethane wear parts for mining, oil sands, industrial, construction, and forestry applications, acquired QPP and brought it under its roof.

Suncast itself had been founded in 1998, driven by a technology it developed in-house, ReCast™. The premise of ReCast is straightforward in concept and technically demanding in execution. New polyurethane is bonded directly to worn, cured polyurethane, rebuilding the original part to its design specifications. The result is a restored component that performs like new. Suncast spent years perfecting this process in some of the harshest industrial environments on the planet, including the oil sands operations of northern Alberta.

“Suncast has been doing ReCast since around 2000,” Canete says. “Initially it was focused on pipeline pig components for Suncor, then it expanded into larger wear parts. The 2016 acquisition of QPP was really about spreading that technology into the broader pigging world.”

Today, QPP and Suncast share a single 22,000-square-foot facility on 3.3 acres in northeast Edmonton. Under one roof sit five automated pour machines, multiple curing ovens, lathes, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), and a large-format 3D printer added in recent years for rapid prototyping. The combined team numbers around 15 people, small by industrial standards, but deep in expertise.

What the acquisition gave QPP was access to Suncast’s accumulated materials science. Where QPP once operated with a handful of polyurethane formulations, the combined operation now works with approximately 30 distinct recipes, each developed through years of real-world application.

“We’ve gone from a three-recipe company to 30-plus recipes,” Canete says. “All of that knowledge in materials, processing, and parts design, goes into every QPP product.”

The role of ReCast™
In most industrial contexts, a worn polyurethane part follows a familiar path: removal, disposal, replacement. A pig cup that begins its working life with a sharp, precisely dimensioned sealing edge gradually rounds with use. Traditionally, the logical endpoint is the landfill.

ReCast interrupts that cycle. The worn component becomes a core onto which new PUR is cast, creating a permanent bond between the new and cured material. The rebuilt part is restored to full specification dimensions and, based on more than two decades of oil sands service history, performs equivalently to a new component.

The numbers behind the program are significant. Suncast has processed more than 3.5 million pounds of polyurethane since 2000, with nearly half of that volume accounted for by ReCast rebuilds. The program has, by the company’s calculation, kept over one million pounds of polyurethane out of landfill, and ReCast parts cost approximately 30 percent less than new equivalents.

Until recently, however, ReCast remained largely unknown outside of the oil sands sector. “We have a proven rebuilding technology with decades of empirical evidence behind it in one of the toughest industrial environments in the world,” Canete says. “Sustainability is moving from a talking point to an actual procurement criterion in a lot of sectors. ReCast is well positioned for that shift, and we want to get the message out.”

The timing appears right. Canete observes that pipeline operators are increasingly incorporating lifecycle emissions, recycled content, and end-of-life material handling into supplier evaluations. What was once a value-add is becoming a differentiator that procurement teams actively seek.

Home-grown expertise
One of the less visible dimensions of what QPP and Suncast have built is the depth of manufacturing knowledge held within their team and the degree to which that knowledge had to be developed from scratch.

Polyurethane manufacturing for industrial wear applications is a niche with no formal training pathway. There are no degrees in pipeline pig formulation, no certification programs for oil sands-grade PUR wear parts. Everything QPP and Suncast know about the craft—every formulation, every processing technique—has been developed internally over nearly three decades. “There aren’t schools you can pull from. It’s all on-the-job development, and some of our people have been processing urethane parts for more than 20 years,” Canete says.

That institutional depth has a practical consequence and QPP now operates as a recognized engineering house, not merely a manufacturer. Its team uses advanced 3D modelling software for part and mould design and can either develop custom engineered solutions independently or collaborate directly with customer engineering teams. The large-format 3D printer added in recent years compresses the prototyping cycle significantly; where custom pig development once took months of design iteration, the team can now have prototypes in hand within a day in some cases.

The quality assurance program reflects the same discipline. QPP maintains strict vetting criteria for material suppliers, recognizing that formulation consistency starts at the raw ingredient level. Every finished part is inspected against customer specification before it leaves the facility.

The 3.3-acre Edmonton site sits on the CANAMEX trade corridor, with direct rail access via CN’s intermodal yard to the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert, connecting QPP and Suncast to Asia-Pacific markets. The corridor runs south to the U.S. border, giving the operation efficient access to its largest export market.

Canete frames the location in terms of what it makes possible with raw materials arriving from global suppliers and finished and rebuilt PUR parts moving out to customers across Canada, the United States, and international markets. The facility, which QPP and Suncast moved into in 2023, expanded the combined manufacturing footprint and production capacity at a time of growing demand.

The proximity to the oil sands region of northern Alberta, particularly the Municipality of Wood Buffalo, is equally deliberate. Suncast has supplied Suncor and other oil sands producers as an OEM polyurethane supplier for over two decades, and QPP, for its part, manufactures approximately 12,000 pipeline pigs and components annually, most of which are deployed within Alberta’s pipeline network.

For Canadian operators, the 100 percent Canadian ownership of QPP and Suncast carries supply chain implications that have become more salient in recent years. For U.S. and international customers, it represents a stable, allied-jurisdiction supplier with no cross-border complexity.

An industry in transition
The pipeline industry is in the middle of a period of convergence as aging municipal infrastructure is reaching design-life limits, smart pig technology is generating new demand for clean lines ahead of inline inspection, and emerging applications including hydrogen pipelines and CO₂ transport for carbon capture are creating requirements that no established pig formulation was designed to meet. Canete sees all of these as QPP and Suncast territory. “Companies that own their materials capability will be able to respond quickly. That’s exactly where we sit,” he says.

On the product side, QPP manufactures a complete range of solid-cast pigs including Utradisc, Powerdisc, Ball pig, Bell-cup, Dyna-flex, Multi-cup, and Pig-valve configurations; foam pigs including balls, squeegees, and swabs; component pigs for batching, bidirectional, construction, and brush-cleaning applications; and a full accessories program covering brushes, magnets, pigging poles, and transmitters. The intent is that a pipeline operator can source a complete pigging package from a single supplier.

Longer-term priorities include broadening the ReCast program to cover a wider range of pig components, expanding into water and wastewater applications where aging municipal infrastructure is generating increasing maintenance activity, and continuing to invest in the Edmonton facility as both product demand and technology capabilities evolve.

When Canete is asked what he most wants readers to take away from QPP’s story, he steers away from the product and toward the foundation underneath it. “When you buy a QPP pig, you are tapping into 30 years of urethane materials science, an Edmonton-based engineering team that solves real-world wear problems, and a sustainability story, through ReCast, that costs less and wastes less than the alternative. We are not trying to be the biggest pig company in the world. We are the company you call when the challenge is difficult.”

It is a precise articulation of a deliberately focused position. QPP and Suncast occupy a narrow slice of the industrial world—Canadian-owned, built on materials expertise accumulated over three decades without a textbook in sight. The pipeline operators, mining companies, and municipal water authorities that rely on QPP’s products are betting, ultimately, on the depth of knowledge behind each pig that leaves that 22,000-square-foot facility. By most measures, it is a solid bet.

The post Pigs, Polyurethane, and Purpose<p class="company">Quality Polly Pig Ltd.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

A leader in the North American geoexchange market, Geosource Energy is a relatively small second-generation Canadian operation that is having a significant market impact by providing Earth Powered Solutions™ to clients across North America and beyond.

Using geothermal energy, which is generated and stored beneath the Earth’s surface, the company’s geoexchange systems provide cost-effective and highly efficient heating, cooling, and hot water for new construction and retrofit projects that seek to set the bar for sustainability and performance.

Backed by proprietary technology and a unique approach, over its 20-plus year history Geosource Energy has drilled over six million linear feet for more than 400 successful projects across Canada and the United States, establishing itself as a leader in the field and a true champion of geothermal.

Why choose geothermal?
An investment in geothermal is an investment in reduced energy use, and thus, lower demand on the grid, fewer emissions, lower life cycle costs, more predictable monthly rates, and optimal year-round comfort; it’s a win for both people and the environment, which is why a greater number of utilities and government entities are doubling down on these investments.

Geothermal systems are proven more sustainable versus conventional HVAC systems, while also being more cost-effective over the long term. In fact, users can experience 25 to 50 percent lower energy costs as a result of the investment, while the underground infrastructure can outlast the structure itself. As CEO Stan Reitsma notes, studies have shown that, “For every dollar that’s saved there, there’s nine dollars saved on the grid.”

In a market marred by volatility and unpredictability, particularly where energy is concerned, the untapped potential of geothermal to add capacity to the grid is something worth exploring. Studies are underway to better understand how geoexchange systems can be used to support the grid as it faces unprecedented demand, particularly in the wake of mass data centre expansion.

Naturally, a big driver in the U.S. is from utilities as they seek to meet this growing demand—more specifically, they are investigating the role of geothermal in cooling storage and demand side power management for data centres as they continue to come online at an impressive pace. “If they can start proving out geothermal for data centres, that’s going to create a whole different type of expansion in the market,” says Vice President Kate Cheng, an area that Geosource Energy is prepared to undertake.

Why choose Geosource?
With more than 20 years of experience offering utility grade construction services and best-in-class drilling and expertise, Geosource Energy is not only a leader in geothermal but also a technology leader who sets the bar and continues to drive the industry forward.

“One of the big differentiators we have is our drill rigs. Geosource has worked with Novamac, our drill manufacturer, for many, many years now and we have only one type of drill rig that we use across our entire company,” says Cheng of the highly flexible dual rotary drill rig which enables work to be done in even the most challenging conditions.

Since 2008, Geosource Energy has been positioning the bore field below a building’s footprint, a proprietary process referred to as At Grade, which allows the drilling to take place before excavation starts (though it can come at any point during new construction or retrofits thanks to angle drilling). Angle drilling enables Geosource Energy to go beneath infrastructure like roadways, buildings, or greenspace without disturbance, using a central location and a concentrated workspace to minimize the impact of its operations.

“When you’re in urban environments drilling next to multifamily buildings with balconies five feet from where you’re drilling, we really limit the acoustic impact of our drill rigs and we’ve developed specialized equipment that allows us to containerize all of our operations so we’re not a big messy site with spoils and grout flying around in the air,” Cheng explains.

This enables the team to get maximum capacity from a limited area, which is particularly useful for retrofit projects like 240 Markland in the Greater Toronto Area, where geoexchange not only improved overall energy efficiency, but also reduced the property’s energy reliance.

“We try to limit the amount of space that we’re actually using to do the geo by putting them very close together at surface and then spreading it out underground,” explains Reitsma, who notes space requirements can be reduced by upwards of 95 percent. “If we had not angle drilled, they would not have been able to retrofit those buildings. They didn’t have enough space.”

This patent-protected process optimizes the trade sequence and drives value from a project’s outset, and to ensure that the benefits of its use are not limited by Geosource’s own capacity, which has been tested by growing demand, the company will license out the technology to other drillers to ensure that industry best practices are being implemented.

This drive to advance geothermal is part of the company’s DNA. According to Cheng, “Our core innovation tenets being equipment innovation, process innovation, and data-driven operations means design improvements based on real performance data, new tools for geothermal field analysis, and intelligence for operational systems,” which enables the company to undertake industry-leading projects that move the needle forward for geothermal and sustainable construction.

Setting the bar
Geosource Energy has a rich portfolio of projects highlighting the value it brings to the market. At the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, Geosource Energy drilled 372 boreholes at 250 meters per borehole (approximately half the height of the CN Tower) to complete the largest operational urban geothermal/geoexchange system in Canada. The project boasts an energy capacity with a storage equivalent of 250,000 electric vehicle batteries and it has cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 17,000 tonnes annually.

The demonstrated value for institutional operations is incredible, which is why more and more such clients are integrating geoexchange into their projects. There is a desire to reap the long-term benefits, deemed worthy of their upfront costs.

This was also the case recently at the new Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador where Geosource designed and installed the geothermal system, which included 375 boreholes spanning 600 feet below the parking lot. Recognized as North America’s largest hospital geothermal system, the geoexchange system provides 100 percent of the hospital’s heating, replacing electric baseboards with a more efficient system that has resulted in a 50 percent reduction in electricity use.

These are the kinds of results Geosource has delivered in Canada over its 20-plus year history, and now it continues to make history south of the border as well. Selected by Lendlease for the 1 Java Street project, a residential development in Brooklyn comprising 834 rental units—30 percent of which are designated as affordable housing—as well as nearly 13,000 square feet of neighbourhood-oriented retail space, Geosource’s expertise and ability to execute is in high demand, and for good reason.

Upon completion, 1 Java Street became the largest geothermal residential project in the United States, thanks to Geosource Energy’s vertical closed loop geoexchange system comprising 321 boreholes at a depth of 500 feet. This system will reduce annual carbon emissions from heating and cooling by 53 percent compared with typical residential systems and as an all-electric building, emissions will be eliminated.

This project also set the stage for additional work in the U.S. and as such, Geosource made the decision to establish a U.S. headquarters in Manhattan to support growth in demand.

For instance, Geosource recently partnered with Honeywell on the John F. Kennedy Elementary School project in Boston, the city’s first geothermal retrofit of a school in the area. Certainly, the geology of the area presents unique challenges, but Geosource was up to the task.

Cheng credits the rigs as “a big part of what makes us so flexible in different geologies because no matter what the geology is, we can tool up to do rotary drilling.”

It’s a good thing, too, because interest is being generated out west with other major projects like Oracle Global Headquarters in Nashville, which means neither geology nor geography is going to stop the company’s success.

The growing push for decarbonization
For clients, geothermal can serve as a component part of achieving net zero/low-carbon outcomes and Geosource Energy, with its acute awareness that only a percentage of the market has been spoken for, continues to push on.

“We all work together trying to decarbonize the industry and we have a solutions mindset related to that,” explains Cheng, which is why Geosource continues to experience growth in demand for its expertise around North America, and even the world.

According to Cheng, “We have the practicality and work ethic of a field-driven construction company but with the analytical approach of an engineering and technology organization.” This is backed by an unmatched depth of experience in the field, actionable data, and technology leadership that enables the company to find success no matter where projects may take it.

With interest even being generated overseas, where there is growing recognition of the potential impact of geoexchange, Geosource Energy is a Canadian company who has become a global authority in geothermal. This is a team that continues to advance the market through exceptional projects and unmatched performance, raising the bar for an entire industry in the process.

The post Raising the Standard for Geothermal<p class="company">Geosource Energy</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Proudly sharing “One State, Many Voices” as its motto and offering a varied and inclusive network that includes economic developers alongside industry partners within utilities, legal, construction, financial, higher education, and more, IEDA buoys Indiana’s unified voice by supporting individuals who are creating the future of the state.

Ensuring that economic development concerns remain at the top of Indiana’s agenda by building partnerships with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, state and federal agencies, and elected and appointed officials, IEDA is committed to supporting Indiana’s vital economic development strategies, boasting a straightforward, fundamental conviction: to create vibrant communities, there must first be investments in the leaders that tirelessly serve those communities.

Member benefits are plentiful, such as ongoing education to learn about industry trends; networking opportunities for the vital sharing of best practices; and direct access to state authorities and legislators. IEDA also serves as a reliable champion for issues that membership believe should be at the forefront of legislative debates.

IEDA was first formed in 1968 as the Indiana Area Development Council when 16 dedicated professional industrial developers came together with a shared vision: to provide continuity and structure to a statewide community development effort. In 1982, IEDA was incorporated as a non-profit organization and expanded into the vital network it is today. Over the years, it has broadened its mission by expanding educational initiatives, taking a more active role in group advocacy, and, since 2005, retaining a specialized lobbying firm to efficiently monitor, create, and advocate for important state legislation.

With more than 400 experts as members, IEDA continues to expand today, taking great pride in its tradition of bringing together and assisting those who drive prosperity across every part of Indiana.

“We’re soon to celebrate our 60^th anniversary, and we’re super excited about that,” says Ewing. “From 60 members in 1983 to 450 today, IEDA began as a networking association only but naturally evolved to strategically support membership in the areas of education and statewide advocacy for economic development.”

The association remains true to its networking core, and brings people together in a variety of formats, from conferences to workshops to virtual meetings, covering topics ranging from housing and utilities to data centers, marketing, and best practices for hosting site visits. “We offer three conferences a year for members to gather in person, we do around six webinars, and then we have one smaller professional development opportunity that we usually cap at about 25 people, an intimate deep dive gathering of all things dynamic development where we bring in experts for three days,” Ewing explains.

Later this month, for instance, will see IEDA host its 2026 summer conference, featuring sessions such as The State of BR&E in Indiana: Foundations, Frameworks, and Forward Momentum; From Strategy to Street Level: Real‑World BR&E Practices Across Indiana; AI-Ready Communities: Building Capacity From the Inside Out; Aligning Voices for Talent: How Workforce and Economic Development Win Together; SEA 1 in Practice: What EDOs Need To Know and How To Prepare; and Building the LEDO Voice: Grassroots Messaging That Earns Public Trust. The opening day of the conference also offers a lunch and panel discussion on Women in Economic Development: Real Estate and Economic Development: Insights from Indiana Realtors, offering perspectives from experienced Indiana real estate professionals, a deeper look at how real estate trends impact local economic growth, and opportunities to engage, ask questions, and build connections with fellow professionals.

“IEDA has a recognized legacy of supporting economic developers and partners throughout the state; throughout our history, our programming and resourcing evolve, as they should, to ensure we remain relevant and impactful by intentionally meeting the needs of members across the state,” adds John T. Launius, Senior Vice President and Chief Economic Development Officer. “We’re really proud of the IEDA’s history but couldn’t be more optimistic about the future of the association. I hope the spirit and the mission of the organization never change, but how we support members and what that looks like can and should evolve alongside our members’ needs.”

When it comes to education and training, a broad range of topics are explored, including childcare becoming an urgent priority in the workplace. “We’re constantly listening to our members and those who attend the conferences, workshops, or webinars we put on,” says Ewing. “We’re always engaging and assessing where the value points and topics need to be for our members and that intentionality drives our content and ultimately our value. This member-driven dynamic is key to ensuring we keep things fresh and make sure it’s relevant.”

Changes to IEDA over the years have included a major rebrand in late 2024, complete with a new logo that reflects the association’s energy and impact, including the tagline of “One State, Many Voices,” capturing and emphasizing the statewide reach the association leverages.

The IEDA plays an invaluable role as the home for economic developers in the State of Indiana, and Launius says there is real power and value in the convening of practitioners from around the state. “As a state with a large geography and a diverse range of resources, assets, and industries, it’s critical that we regularly connect and complement regional economic development activity statewide,” Launius shares. “You can feel that connectivity and camaraderie when you go to any of our conferences; there’s an expectation that you will see old friends and partners and make new ones all while elevating the overall quality and competitiveness of the entire state.”

IEDA has a rich history of impactful advocacy work centered around educating elected officials and empowering members with the information and relationships to support their shared priorities. This work is vital, he adds, and an area in which IEDA, through its members, spends a lot of time and energy, ensuring its collective voice is unified and at the table. “This collaborative results-oriented approach requires expertise, patience, and perseverance, all attributes abundantly available through our statewide membership,” Launius says.

Strategically navigating an ever-changing and evolving landscape is one key to success, particularly in light of domestic and international dynamics, where changes are taking place at a “different kind of scale and pace. It positions our advocacy work to be much more active, responsive, and across an even larger area of impact and value to our members,” he says.

Looking ahead, he anticipates ongoing industry and ecosystem shifts around the country—and indeed the world—while IEDA remains steadfast and committed to meeting member needs. “There have been evolving dynamics at the local, state, federal, and international levels for economic developers, and we’re always trying to position Indiana communities as competitive and welcoming environments for businesses and employees,” he emphasizes.

“As economic developers, we have a duty to tell our local, regional, state story of not only our operational advantages but also the quality of people and diversity of perspectives that we embrace. Many of our members have felt a growing need to communicate that narrative externally more broadly and consistently—that we are a welcoming environment and open for business—so we have found ourselves as a professional organization responding to member needs in those areas.”

Responding to those needs has resulted in new areas of involvement such as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s SelectUSA program, a federal initiative that aims to increase awareness of the vital role economic development plays in the U.S. economy and to facilitate business investment that creates jobs in the country. SelectUSA has supported more than 270,000 jobs in the United States by facilitating more than $400 billion in investment since its founding.

“This year, the IEDA, alongside state, regional, and local economic development partners, collaboratively and successfully represented Indiana. This effort brought efficiency and energy to our presence while generating hundreds of foreign direct investment contacts and leads for our members,” Launius says of the evolution and type of event IEDA prides itself on embracing.

Collaboration like this is key to success in economic development, he adds. “We can’t just work as IEDA alone. Relationships and trust are imperative to ensuring excellence and accomplishing these types of initiatives. We were honored and proud to meet the needs of our members and bring our marketing and logistics expertise to guide the effort.”

He also stresses the importance of the role volunteers play in the association’s ongoing success. “We are heavily supported and run by a lot of volunteers with very active committees,” he says. “Whether they’re vetting and selecting content for workshops and conferences, developing or monitoring policy priorities, or recruiting and cultivating members, we benefit from the passion and experiences of our membership.

As for accomplishments, one that Ewing is most proud of in the past year and a half is IEDA’s revamping its member engagement committee and dividing it into three subgroups of new members, current members, and prospective members.

“Our New Member Committee welcomes members as they come in with personal phone calls and emails, seeking them out at conferences and inviting them to either dinners or lunches before conferences start so that they can come in, meet people, and not just be walking into a room with no one they’ve ever met,” she says. “We’re constantly having these touch points so they don’t feel like they’ve been forgotten and are never seen or heard.”

The Prospective Member Committee reaches out to non-members who attend conferences to try to pull them in, ensure they stay engaged, and eventually become a member. Finally, the Current Member Group evaluates what to offer to members to ensure ongoing networking opportunities, adding regional networking receptions and giving updates on the association. And the initiative is working.

“We had a 98 percent member renewal rate last year, which I think was amazing,” says Ewing. “We hit our new member goal by 168 percent, and those three groups working together have also increased attendance at our conferences. Seeing those numbers grow helps the association become fiscally sustainable, but it’s also bringing so much more to everybody who’s attending. They’re getting more out of it as well.”

One of IEDA’s biggest challenges, she adds, is the ever-changing profession of economic development, such as the evolution of the need for childcare. “I’ve been with the association for almost 20 years, and childcare never came up,” she says. “It was just not something talked about, and now at every conference we’re talking about it. It’s at the state level at the legislature that we’re talking about it.” IEDA gladly takes on the challenge because it wants to help on every single level, so the more it can do to provide for its members, the better.

Additionally, the association is currently focusing on updated strategic pillars developed through membership engagement and input. These pillars position leadership to strategically evaluate and direct operations and value. This ongoing process means being proactive in different ways, including recognizing different types of member feedback and looking ahead. Ultimately, though, the goal is IEDA making Indiana stronger and more cohesive by empowering professionals through connection, education, and advocacy.

“What’s been a theme, and critical to IEDA’s past and future success, is to take an education-based approach and bring diverse thoughts together,” says Launius. “We want to continue to be the ‘go to’ resource for our members and stakeholders, particularly with some of the emerging topics the industry is facing. We garner credibility on both sides of issues when we take a thoughtful, education-based approach.”

As Indiana continues to compete for investment, talent, and long-term economic resilience, IEDA will remain an essential force in equipping the people who shape the state’s future with information and insights they can trust. By nurturing collaboration across industries, championing informed advocacy, and ensuring members are prepared to meet emerging challenges, the association continues to strengthen not only individual communities but the state of Indiana as a whole.

The post One State, Many Voices: Stronger Communities through Education, Connection, and Advocacy<p class="company">Indiana Economic Development Association</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

That is where Estone Technology has built its position.

Estone Technology is a rugged computing ODM/OEM engineering and manufacturing partner that helps customers turn product ideas, technical requirements, and early-stage concepts into reliable, production-ready solutions. From rugged tablets and laptops to industrial panel PCs, HMIs, embedded computing systems, medical-grade platforms, and rugged control systems for robotics and autonomous applications, Estone supports customers who need computing platforms built for demanding environments.

The company’s role is not simply to provide hardware. It helps customers bridge the gap between a product vision and a deployable solution that can survive real operating conditions, integrate with larger systems, meet project-specific requirements, and remain supported throughout its lifecycle.

As Sales Engineer Jo Yee Ong explains, “Many customers come to us with a product idea, a PRD, a set of technical requirements, or a market need. Our role is to help turn that vision into a rugged computing solution that can be engineered, manufactured, certified where required, and supported in the real world.”

From computer business to rugged computing partner
Estone’s foundation began with a small computer business known as Stone Computer. In its early years, the company competed in the broader consumer computer market, where differentiation was difficult and long-term value was often limited. Over time, the team saw a stronger opportunity in specialized computing applications, where reliability, customization, engineering support, and long-term product availability mattered more than standard product availability.

That shift became the foundation for what would later become Estone Technology. After adopting the Estone name in 2008 and establishing operations in both California and Ohio, the company moved deeper into rugged computing, embedded systems, and ODM/OEM development for industrial, medical, and mission-critical applications.

Today, Estone works with customers that need computing platforms tailored to specific technical, environmental, regulatory, and operational requirements. Some customers begin with an existing rugged tablet, panel PC, HMI, embedded system, or control platform from Estone’s product portfolio and customize it for their application. Others begin with only an idea, concept drawing, product requirement document, or market opportunity, and Estone helps guide that concept toward a manufacturable product.

This flexibility has become one of the company’s defining strengths.

Moving from concept to deployment
Developing a rugged computing product is rarely as simple as selecting components and placing them inside a durable enclosure. Customers often need to consider display performance, touch functionality, processor selection, thermal design, battery life, connectivity, wireless communication, operating system support, mechanical structure, certification requirements, software integration, firmware behavior, lifecycle management, and supply-chain continuity.

For companies that do not have all of these resources internally, the path from product idea to finished product can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming.

Estone helps reduce that complexity by supporting customers throughout the product development process. The company can help refine early requirements, identify practical design options, customize baseline platforms, support full custom development, and provide manufacturing and lifecycle support after deployment.

For many projects, Estone can also support certification planning and project-based compliance preparation. Depending on the final product, target market, and application, certification requirements may influence decisions related to enclosure design, material selection, wireless modules, power systems, electromagnetic compatibility, medical-grade requirements, environmental testing, and documentation. By considering these needs earlier in the development process, Estone helps customers reduce redesign risk and move more efficiently toward market readiness.

“Our job is to help customers make the right decisions early,” says Ong. “Small choices in hardware design, component selection, software integration, certification planning, or mechanical structure can affect cost, reliability, serviceability, and product availability years later.”

For Estone, a successful product is not measured only by whether it meets a specification sheet; it also has to perform reliably in the environment where the customer will actually use it. In medical environments, that may mean supporting specialized imaging, cleanability, antimicrobial materials, medical-grade certifications, long-term availability, and integration with clinical workflows. In industrial automation, it may involve panel PCs or HMIs that can operate in harsh conditions, support specific I/O requirements, and integrate with factory systems. In robotics and autonomous systems, the need may involve rugged control platforms, sunlight-readable displays, reliable wireless communication, open architecture support, and project-based compliance considerations.

“When our customers can deploy their systems with confidence, that is when we know the engineering work has created real value,” says Ong. “A successful product is not only about meeting the specification on paper. It also has to perform reliably in the customer’s actual operating environment.”

Flexible platforms, white label solutions, and custom development
Many of Estone’s rugged computing products are designed to serve as flexible baseline platforms. These platforms give customers a practical starting point while still allowing room for customization.

For some projects, adapting an existing rugged tablet, laptop, panel PC, HMI, embedded system, or control platform can help shorten development timelines and reduce risk. This approach can be especially valuable when a customer needs to move quickly but still requires changes to hardware, I/O, enclosure design, firmware, software, branding, operating system, certification path, or integration behavior.

For other projects, customers may need a fully customized product developed from the ground up. In those cases, Estone can help take a customer’s concept, PRD, or market requirement and turn it into a complete computing platform designed for manufacturing and deployment.

In addition to offering rugged computing reference platforms, Estone supports customers that need white label, private label, or fully customized ODM/OEM solutions. For customers building their own product lines, this means Estone can provide rugged computing platforms that are customized to match the customer’s brand, application, market position, and technical requirements.

This support may include custom branding, enclosure modifications, hardware configuration, I/O adjustments, software image customization, packaging support, documentation coordination, and lifecycle planning. For some customers, a white label or private label approach can help accelerate time to market by starting with a proven rugged computing platform and adapting it into a product that can be sold under the customer’s own brand.

For others, Estone can support a deeper ODM development path, helping transform a concept, PRD, or specialized product requirement into a purpose-built computing solution. This flexibility allows customers to choose the development model that best fits their business strategy, timeline, budget, target market, and supply-chain needs.

More than hardware
As connected devices become more advanced, many customers need support that goes beyond the physical device itself. For HMI, panel PC, embedded platform, and connected system projects, hardware is only one part of the final solution. The user interface, operating system, update method, device management tools, connectivity, software environment, certification considerations, and field maintenance strategy all influence whether the final product can be deployed and scaled successfully.

“These projects are rarely just about the device itself,” says Ong. “For many HMI and panel PC customers, the hardware, user interface, update method, and management platform all have to work together. When those pieces are planned together from the beginning, the final product is easier to deploy, maintain, and scale.”

Estone can help customers shape the user experience, support administrative management tools, enable over-the-air update capabilities, and develop companion mobile applications when required. This is especially important for customers deploying connected devices at scale, where remote support and software update capabilities can reduce the need to retrieve products from the field.

By combining rugged computing hardware with practical software ecosystem support, certification planning, and lifecycle support, Estone helps customers move from product concept to deployable solution with greater efficiency and confidence.

Global support and manufacturing flexibility
In many of Estone’s target industries, standard consumer devices cannot meet the requirements for long-term availability, customization, ruggedness, or lifecycle support unless purchased in very large volumes. Instead, customers need a platform that can remain stable, consistent, and supported for years.

This is especially important in healthcare, industrial automation, robotics, autonomous systems, and mission-critical applications, where frequent component changes, supply-chain instability, or limited technical support can create serious operational risk.

To meet those needs, Estone has built its business around four key strengths: cost efficiency, engineering responsiveness, end-to-end solution capability, and long-term partnership.

The company’s global footprint allows it to support sourcing, production, logistics, certification-related coordination, and customer collaboration across multiple regions. With office and support presence across the United States, Europe, Japan, and China, along with manufacturing flexibility in the United States, Vietnam, and China depending on customer requirements, Estone can help customers align production strategy with cost targets, compliance needs, supply-chain resilience, and regional market expectations.

“We support customers from the earliest design discussions through deployment and lifecycle management,” says Ong. “That continuity is important because the product does not end when it leaves the factory. Customers need confidence that their platform can be supported, maintained, and improved over time.”

Supporting growth markets
As customer needs continue to evolve, Estone has expanded its regional support capabilities to better serve key growth markets.

In 2025, the company launched its Japanese subsidiary to support increasing demand from medical and healthcare customers. In these markets, localized collaboration, engineering communication, technical support, and long-term reliability are especially important.

Estone also expanded its U.S. warehouse operations as part of its growing focus on the drone, robotics, and autonomous systems markets. Customers in these sectors are placing greater emphasis on trusted supply chains, localized support, shorter deployment timelines, and project-based compliance considerations, including NDAA- and TAA-related requirements.

Because Estone supports customers across industrial, medical, robotics, autonomous systems, and commercial technology markets, the company also participates in leading industry events around the world. In 2026, Estone exhibited at Japan IT Week, XPONENTIAL, and the National Restaurant Association Show, strengthening relationships across medical, embedded computing, robotics, autonomous systems, and connected commercial technology markets.

These investments reflect where Estone sees strong opportunity in the years ahead. As robotics, autonomous systems, medical technology, industrial edge computing, and connected device applications become more intelligent and more demanding, the need for customizable rugged computing platforms is expected to continue growing.

Turning product vision into real-world solutions
For companies developing specialized computing products, the challenge is not only creating a device that works. It is creating a product that can be engineered, certified where required, manufactured, deployed, maintained, and supported over time.

That is where Estone’s role becomes valuable.

Whether a customer needs to customize an existing rugged platform, develop a white label product under its own brand, or build a purpose-built device from the ground up, Estone helps reduce development risk, shorten the path from concept to deployment, and support the product throughout its lifecycle.

Ultimately, Estone’s goal remains consistent: to serve as a long-term rugged computing ODM/OEM partner that helps customers turn ideas, requirements, and product visions into reliable real-world solutions.

The post Turning Ideas Into Real-World Rugged Computing Solutions<p class="company">Estone Technology</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

For all of its manufacturing prowess, the company’s success can be largely attributed to its client-centered approach. “We put the customer first,” says Sales Manager, Francie Williams. “That’s why we have the customer retention we do, and why we’ve been in business so long.”

Being relatively small, the company is nimble and highly responsive to client needs. Flex Technologies also has a loyal, dedicated workforce and invests in the communities in which it has a presence.

In addition to the company headquarters, it operates an extrusion plant in Midvale. Injection molding and assembly work is done at sites in Mount Eaton, Ohio and Lafayette, Tennessee while a division called Polyflex, based in Baltic, Ohio, specializes in polyvinyl chloride (PVC). This process entails blending PVC resin with various additives to create custom plastic material.

All work is self-performed, a major point of pride for the company. Being vertically integrated makes things more convenient for customers and is “pretty much our main selling point for the bigger assemblies with large customers,” notes Williams.

Flex Technologies’ products can be grouped into three main categories: assembled products, injection molded components, and custom extruded products. The assembled products category includes sunroof drain tubes, fuel line assemblies, vacuum, and PVC assemblies, as well as vapor emission assemblies and carbon canisters. These are produced through automated processes and then assembled by skilled manual workers.

Products in the injection molded components category include fuel vent valves, fuel line valves, fuel caps, specialized fuel delivery connectors, and specialized couplings. The company uses presses ranging from 85 to 440 tons and excels at shuttle molding—a technique to mold multiple components in a single cycle.

Tough and durable aeration tubing to inject oxygen into soil or water is a flagship product in custom extrusion. This category also covers protective boat moldings to prevent rub and clear PVC tubing, among other goods.

Flex Technologies’ capabilities range from on-site compounding and material customization to custom extrusion and injection molding, design and engineering, rapid prototyping and validation, assembly, testing, and quality assurance. The company also performs laser etching, 3D printing, in-house tooling, and welding, and markets served include marine, consumer, automotive, lawn and garden, and industrial.

“We ship worldwide,” Williams explains. “We have quite a few customers outside of the United States, but our main focus is the U.S. just because shipping costs are so high.”

Flex Technologies boasts both ISO 9001 and IATF 16949:2016 certification, the latter being a global automotive standard—in this case, for thermoplastic assemblies, spin welding, and manufacture of injection molded components. Dedicated quality assurance teams conduct inspections, tests, and quality checks, and the company’s guiding principle is “quality products, the first time, on time, every time,” she says.

To maintain quality, productivity, and efficiency, Flex Technologies works hard to stay on top of the latest technological developments. Besides 3D printers, it uses computer-aided design software and just purchased new CNC machines for mold-making. “We’ve been hiring mechanical engineers to help with making our processes better and improving the way we make, produce, and assemble, making it all more cohesive and faster,” adds Williams. “We’re always continuously working on improving the products.”

The company was founded in 1975 by Glenn Burket, and at first featured a tiny staff of roughly a dozen employees working from an extrusion plant in Midvale. It initially focused on making specialized tubing for the automotive sector. Three years later, the Polyflex division was established, and the business was able to achieve vertical integration. PVC compounds created by Polyflex are used for everything from toys and shoes to wires, cables, hoses, and molding, in the agricultural, automotive, fencing, and extrusion markets.

At present, Flex Technologies/Polyflex operates six compounding lines with an annual capacity of over 150 million pounds. The Polyflex division can perform color matching for customers who send in material samples and offers goods in a variety of colors, formulations, and formats, from highly flexible to semi-rigid. Polyflex complies with relevant U.S. guidelines as well as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) regulations, two European Union standards.

Founder Burket served Flex Technologies for decades. He passed away in early November 2024, but many aspects of his original vision remain in place. For a start, all the company’s sites are still located in small towns, a reflection of Burket’s community-minded spirit. “Our founder [thought it was] very important to keep it local and to support local,” says Williams.

The company has been a long-time sponsor and supporter of community groups, local sports teams, and 4-H agricultural events. Burket was well-known for purchasing meat at local county fairs and then distributing it to his personnel.

In the same spirit, Flex Technologies proudly manufactures its products in America, and when possible, uses recycled materials, be it cardboard or reprocessed plastic (used thermoplastic material that has been cleaned, then melted down and extruded into pellet form to be re-used). Keeping production within the United States gives the company more control over quality and ensures shorter lead times, and the company extends this viewpoint to its supply chain, aiming to obtain its raw materials from within the U.S. This makes good business sense, given the chaos that engulfed global supply chains during the recent COVID crisis.

At present, the company has approximately 135 employees across all divisions. The workforce is highly diverse, represents a wide range of ages and backgrounds, and is proud to have a female leader in Chief Operating Officer, Rachel Tetreault. Anyone looking for a job here needs to demonstrate self-motivation and a positive mindset, says Williams, and once brought on board, the company offers staff an array of opportunities. While outsiders are more than welcome to apply for positions, Flex Technologies likes to promote from within. The company encourages camaraderie through special events such as the recent Easter Egg hunt at the Lafayette site in addition to celebrating personal milestones. An employee in the prototype shop, for example, was recently honored on her fortieth anniversary of working there.

Over the decades, Flex Technologies has received numerous industry kudos, the most recent being a General Motors ‘Customer Care & Aftersales Excellence in Supplier Performance Award’ for 2025. This honor was the latest in a series of awards bestowed by GM and other sources for work well done.

“We’re very, very proud every time we get any of these awards,” Williams says. “It is one of the biggest highlights for our teams to see these awards and they are very proud to receive them. It gives our employees a great boost to morale.”

The company does face its share of challenges, including supply chain woes despite domestic sourcing. “Right now, raw material prices are skyrocketing,” explains Williams. “We’re looking at increases that nobody has seen before, other than during COVID, for plastics and resins.”

Inflation has pushed up the cost of machinery, equipment, and software as well. Outside of purchasing, it also causes headaches on other fronts; when customers insist on sticking to quotes made a year or two ago that are now outdated thanks to inflation, profit margins suffer. All of this is compounded by upheavals within the automotive sector as the Big Three American OEMs cope with overseas competition and unpredictable markets.

For all that, Flex Technologies continues to innovate and is eager to create new offerings. “We have new products in the pipeline,” Williams shares.

She has a very positive outlook on the company. Within five years, she hopes to see the company “increase our portfolio, increase our sales, and absolutely keep our customers happy… We’ve been in business for 50 years. We’re looking forward to the next 50. To [reach our centennial] we are upgrading and improving and working to keep our quality high, keep our employee retention high, and to have a work environment that stays positive.”

The post This Specialty Plastics Firm Hits the Half-Century Mark in Style<p class="company">Flex Technologies</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.