Adetel Solution, in Montreal, is part of the International Cendum Adetel Group, which has offices worldwide. The company specializes in custom solutions and innovation and is dedicated to taking on unique engineering challenges and designing quality products that last.

Panama City, Florida is an idyllic place on St. Andrews Bay, along Route 98, with long stretches of white sandy beaches, amusement parks, and an old fishing town that caters to both locals and a large tourist population. Panama City Mall is the perfect complement to the city as it is the only enclosed shopping center for sixty-five miles.

In 2005, Ramin Mesgarlou started Opulence (then known as Global Wealth Trade Corporation, or GWT Corp) from his home office with a vision that was twofold. First, he wanted to create one-of-a-kind fashion and beauty products, and second, he wanted to give entrepreneurs all over the world a chance to build their own wealth by selling these high quality products through their own online businesses.

From microbrewery beer and freshly-picked beets to handmade furniture and neighbourhood bicycle repair shops, spending our money on locally-sourced goods and services has become a passion for many who recognize the benefits to consumers, small businesses, the community, the environment, and even our health.

Tufts University is a moderately sized university in Medford, Massachusetts with a focus on scientific research and liberal arts. Named for Charles Tufts, an American businessman and philanthropist, who donated 20 acres of land to the school in 1852 and later an additional 80 acres, Tufts University is now one of the longest standing colleges in the Boston area.

This year, the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC), is celebrating 65 years of advocacy, representation and success as a union that is committed to creating positive workplaces, lives and communities for its members through its approach to labour relations that is built on Christian values of respect, dignity and fairness.

Across Iowa, more companies are realizing the benefits that come with doing business in this Midwestern state and particularly in Marion County. The county was named after Brigadier General Francis Marion, who served in the American Revolutionary War. This scenic area has been a popular location for businesses for well over a century and is today the home of many respected companies including window and door manufacturer Pella Corporation, Precision Pulley & Idler, Vermeer Corporation and others such as the 3M Company, Weiler Corporation, Cascade Lumber Company, Van Gorp Corporation, Lely and LDJ Manufacturing.

Midwest Partnership Economic Development Corporation is a non-profit economic development organization in West Central Iowa that was first formed as I-80 Development in 1992. Adair and Guthrie Counties came together to form the organization in order to handle leads and prospects in business development along the Interstate.

Municipal boosters in Albert Lea, a small city based in Southeastern, Minnesota, were asked a simple question: what is the main thing you want the public to know about your hometown?

“We are a beautiful community that’s open for business,” replies Albert Lea Economic Development Agency (ALEDA) Executive Director Ryan Nolander. City officials are eager to attract new business while enhancing the existing economic base.

Pine County has been around as long as the state of Minnesota. For many years it was a rural, agricultural community made up of smaller towns of about fifteen hundred residents. That began to change with the pan-urban growth out of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis – Saint Paul) in the 1980s and 1990s, and there has been a fair amount of population growth since then, particularly in the southern part of the county…

Otter Tail is a rural county in beautiful west central Minnesota. It is geographically blessed – from a natural resource perspective – with 1,048 lakes, more than any other county in the entire United States. This has resulted in the county having more shoreline than California and Florida put together. It is quite large, spanning roughly 2,500 square miles. “If you were to take all of the highways within the county, stretch them out and lay them end-to-end, they would stretch to Houston, Texas,” says Economic Development Director Nick Leonard.

Pardon the pun, but Wright County really is the right place to be if you have a choice of small business-friendly communities in which to live and work. Depending on where you are in the county, you are only thirty to forty-five minutes from all the amenities of the urban centers of St. Paul-Minneapolis and St. Cloud, and yet you are surrounded by rolling farm country and over two hundred lakes. Visit Monticello, on the banks of the Mississippi, and you will see flocks of trumpeter swans, once an endangered species. Moreover, the county’s economic development partnership is ready to talk business. Its mission statement: “Partnering for Opportunities” says it all. Intrigued? Read on.

Located just two hours west of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the City of Willmar, in Kandiyohi County. Business in Focus spoke with Aaron Backman, the executive director of the Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission (EDC); Joanna Schrupp, business development officer for the MinnWest Technology Campus; and Betsy Bonnema from co-working space WORKUP, to learn more about this dynamic county and what it has to offer for existing and prospective businesses.

Nicknamed “the smartest city in rural America,” Kirksville, Missouri, is home to world-class educational institutions as well as businesses of all sizes. With a well-educated workforce and a business-friendly culture, the city offers boundless opportunities for new and expanding businesses.

Spartanburg is the largest city in the county with thirty-eight thousand residents, and it is also the county seat of Spartanburg County, in South Carolina. The city has taken a proactive approach in transforming itself through business, education, health and wellness, neighborhood communities, culture and much more.

Faustel is a privately held solutions provider for coating and laminating equipment that process paper, film, foil, and non-woven materials (nonwovens is a special category of fabric-like materials made by tangling fibers into a web rather than weaving). The company has also developed equipment to work with exotic materials such as carbon fiber.

Major Tool & Machine, Inc. (MTM) is a world-recognized leader with decades of industry experience in contract manufacturing, providing turnkey services that include material conversion, forming and fabrication, precision welding, precision machining, assembly and testing.

While it offers flat rolled, heavy carbon and specialized metal products, Kloeckner Metals Corporation is so much more than steel. It is making great strides in modernizing its operations and transforming the technology and processes to improve the customer interface. The ultimate goal is to overhaul the way the markets function and change the industry as we know

Manufacturer and distributor J.W. Winco offers over 25,000 standard machine components and industrial parts – in both metric and imperial sizing – as well as customized pieces. The company has operated for over thirty years and is still headquartered in New Berlin, Wisconsin, where it got its start as a distributor in 1985.

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, in a 50,000-square-foot integrated manufacturing facility, Creative Sign Designs is a nationally recognized leader in custom interior and exterior signage that incorporates high-technology design, top-of-the-line construction, and installation.