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Helping ease the pain
Holmen business makes cushions to help relieve sore spots for disabled
By Shari Hegland
Steve Kohlman says entrepreneurs have to have a passion for what they are doing and a determination to stick with it, no matter what. There can be little doubt that the founder of Aquila Corporation, a small but growing company focused on making life better for people who use wheelchairs, has that passion. It is a dedication that was first fueled by his own father's illness and struggle with pressure sores developed from sitting in a wheelchair. Though his father was using an automated air cushion, the cushion apparently failed and went flat, but there was no way to tell due to how the cushion was made. "He had to have two surgical repairs on that sore and had to spend the better part of four months in bed," Kohlman said. It was during this time that Kohlman began learning about what causes pressure sores and what is needed to prevent and heal them. The sores, which can form in as little as 20 minutes, are the result of circulation being restricted to cells due to compression, most often of the skin and muscle under a person's seat bones. "I decided that I was going to try to invent a cushion that gave relief automatically, and that would automatically alarm if there was a malfunction," he said. To do so, he left a successful job at FedEx and started the company in his home, a move he admits was not popular with his wife at the time. "I was gluing the units in the garage, shipping them from the dining room table and making the electrical components in the shed," he said. The first prototype, which took several months to develop, went to his dad. From
there, the cushions have been in a state of constant improvement.
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Fitting into a new mold
River Falls plant shifted focus from making automotive, industrial products to serve the medical sector
By Brenda Bredahl
Minnesota Rubber and Plastics/Quadion Corp. executives say the expansion and renovation of its River Falls facility will make the Wisconsin division a world-class medical manufacturing plant. "It is survival of the fittest going on, and we see the medical industry as one with growth," said Dennis Ortscheid, director of technology and quality systems for MRP/Quadion Corp., who planned and oversaw a recent expansion and changeover. "The renovation of our initial footprint is now for the medical side, and the addition now is primarily for the automotive side." The shift from making high-performance customized automotive and industrial plastic molded components to a retooled facility for primarily medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing is made possible by a complete renovation and 10,000 square-foot expansion. The facility now totals 45,000 square feet of manufacturing plus two clean rooms. In April 2005, MRP acquired a medical device and plastics molding company, and the River Falls facility had been making just a few products and components for the medical industry. Two new ISO 13485 certified environments include a class 10,000 clean room for assembly, cleaning and packaging and a class 100,000 clean room for plastics injection molding. Some of the medical applications include components for pharmaceutical equipment, drug delivery, prosthetics, catheters, leads and surgical tools among other items.
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Premier Dies quickly outgrew incubator space
Founded in 2001 by six area men, it now does business internationally
By Heather Rothbauer-Wanish
What started as a small endeavor by six men in the Eau Claire incubation center in 2001 has turned into a thriving business now located in a 43,000-square-foot building in Chippewa Falls. Steady growth and need for more space led the company to move to it's new site n the Riverside Industrial Park in February 2005. Each of the six founders of Premier Dies had experience in different areas of the extrusion-die industry in the Chippewa Valley ranging from sales to engineering, purchasing and manufacturing. This overlapping experience provided a solid foundation for the startup company. Many people have heard of dies, but may not quite understand their function. According to Steve Jonjak, president of Premier Dies, the function of a die can be difficult to describe. Dies are primarily used by industrial customers and other industries to make their end products. A die is not just an end product itself, but a means by which many other products are manufactured. Each die is made of tool steel or stainless steel and can range in size from a few inches in width to more than 15 feet, depending upon the final use. Premier Dies has two primary product lines: slot coating dies and polymer extrusion dies. The slot coating dies are the primary product of the company's business. These types of dies assist customers with applying liquids to paper, plastic or metal substrates. An example of this is the application of glue that goes on the back of a sticky label. The die is the component that applies the glue to the paper in creating the label.
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Growth Strategies
DuraTech does business worldwide
By Kim Seidel
Listening to customers is a major factor contributing to DuraTech Industries' impressive growth during the past 30 years, said Peter Johnson, president of the printing company based in La Crosse. In 1977, a small group of entrepreneurs started DuraTech from a garage in Galesville, Wis. Labels, bumper stickers and t-shirts were the main products produced by the screen-printing company, which employed six people when it was purchased in 1978. Today, DuraTech provides identification graphics to Fortune 500 companies worldwide. In 2007, the company opened a manufacturing plant in China and this year acquired two printing businesses in the southeast United States. Owned by David Pretasky, DuraTech is best known around the world for its screen-printed, flexographic and digital-printed products. The company also offers metal nameplates, switches and overlays for in-mold decorating. DuraTech serves the appliance, automotive, computer and electronic, industrial, medical and transportation industries. The company's formula for success is, Johnson said, "very simple - listening to the customer and helping them achieve their goals. Another very important part is doing what you say you will do. Having a manufacturing location in China also has helped DuraTech continue to grow." Several of the company's major clients, including IBM and GE, first planted the idea that DuraTech consider expanding to China. As the company became more strategic in marketing for those customers, they requested that DuraTech expand to China with them. DuraTech began to lay the groundwork to
open the China plant in 2004. Since opening last year, the venture is going well for the company, Johnson said.
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The list
Tourism increase by county
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