Success Stories

HB Sound & Light staging success from Grand Forks

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:49:38 -0600

In addition to installing video, sound and security systems for homes and businesses, HB Sound & Light stages large events and concerts throughout the tri-state region.

“People tell us they see our trucks everywhere,” HB Sound & Light President Jamie Lunski says about his Red River Valley company, which is headquartered in Grand Forks.

The multi-faceted enterprise Lunski started nearly 20 years ago finds solutions for clients who are integrating today’s technology into homes and offices.

And whether it’s a conference, concert, dignitary’s speech, marathon, or wedding, HB has a flair for staging events.

Marketing Coordinator Kristen Abner said, “So many people recognize the HB logo but don’t really know about all the products and services we offer.”

The future is now

Installing home theaters, integrated video, audio systems and security has been a part of HB’s business all along. For the past eight years, they’ve responded to a growing demand for smart homes and businesses.

HB works with residential clients to customize home technology systems and the possibilities are endless.

Imagine watching a home movie and, with the click of a single button, the DVD player and surround sound speakers will turn on while the room lights dim and window shades lower.

Have a vacation home? HB can set up a system so you can activate or monitor the heating and cooling or the security system at your lake home while in Grand Forks. Water and carbon monoxide sensors can be installed that will notify you if there is an issue while you’re away – all of this can be done through a smartphone, tablet or laptop computer.

Home security systems are becoming an increasingly popular installation service for HB. These can range from video monitoring, to keyless entry systems, to door alarms. This type of system, Abner says, is particularly helpful for parents who want to ensure their kids are arriving home safely after school or are leaving for a friend’s house.

HB Sound & Light prides itself in providing custom solutions for its customers. “There’s no cookie cutter,” Lunski said. HB works closely with homeowners, he said, to create systems that match their lifestyle and needs and to simplify the way those systems are accessed.

BBI International a global news hub for energy markets

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:17:24 -0700

BBI International produces international bioenergy conferences from its offices in Grand Forks. N.D.

From its Grand Forks headquarters, media company BBI International has become a leading voice for the renewable, clean and unconventional energy industries.

Since first starting in 1995, BBI has honed a business model that maximizes its reach in niche trade areas, combining print and digital publications with annual international industry conferences. They also have a consulting arm, specializing in biofuel and biomass project assistance.

Joe Bryan, the company’s CEO, said BBI’s start came in the early days of the ethanol industry when they saw an opportunity to fill a void as the industry was taking shape. “That’s really where our core reputation started. We had connections to people who helped build the industry.” And today, he says, “BBI is part of the fabric of the ethanol industry.”

He adds, “We’ll always take pride in that. We had a hand in growing the industry.”

BBI publishes Ethanol Producer Magazine, a monthly publication. In addition, they produce the longest-running ethanol conference in the world, the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, which annually brings together producers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

There were, Bryan said, 18 million gallons of biodiesel being produced in 2004 when another of their publications, Biodiesel Magazine, launched. In 2012, production exceeded 900 million gallons.

“We went national ahead of when the industry took off,” he said.

With its biofuels and biomass conferences, magazines, and websites, and ancillary products that include maps and directories, BBI International covers the spectrum in bioenergy matters.

The company has more than 3 million impressions to its websites annually, more than 20,000 magazine subscribers, and more than 5,000 who attend its conferences each year.

BBI does all of this with a staff of about 30, says Bryan. They manage and execute all aspects of their operations in-house, from editorial development, sales, graphic design, and event planning.

SBA cultivates small business success in Grand Forks region

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:24:26 -0700

Eric Giltner, Senior Area Manager with the Grand Forks SBA office, provides training and support to small business clients in the region.

Small businesses are big business in today’s economy.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Grand Forks office is one of the region’s leading resources for small business owners and those with aspirations to become one.

Senior Area Manager Eric Giltner, says his office and its resource partners, specialize in helping small businesses step through the details behind opening new or purchasing existing businesses and put owners on a path to success.

Integral partners in the Grand Forks SBA office’s work are the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and the local SCORE chapter.

“We try to help ensure they cover all aspects of business ownership before they start and really understand what it takes to build a successful business,” he said.

The SBA provides consultative support, helps entrepreneurs gain access to capital financing, and provides guidance to help small businesses sell their products and/or services to the federal government.

A small business, according the SBA, is defined as one with 500 or fewer employees that is independently owned and operated, is organized for profit, and is not dominant in its field. This could be a home-based business like a daycare or a manufacturing company exporting products from the region.

“The Grand Forks SBA office is an integral part of our region’s economic development growth,” said Grand Forks Region EDC Vice President Keith Lund. “Their commitment to support business owners is an important part of helping create employment opportunities and business growth.”

According to the SBA’s most recent report, small businesses represent 96.0 percent of all employers and employ 60.2 percent of the private-sector workforce in North Dakota.

Most of North Dakota’s small businesses are very small, as 71.4 percent of all businesses did not have employees and most employers have fewer than 20 employees.

GFK ushers in growing number of planes, people

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 07:30:44 -0700

By the numbers GFK:

Is the 17th busiest air traffic control tower in the United States, sandwiched between Miami International and New York’s LaGuardia airports.
Employs 750 full- and part-time employees, making it the 7th largest regional employer as a complex.
saw more than 17.7 million pounds of cargo loaded and more than 24 million pounds unloaded in 2011.
opened a new $24 million, 52,000 square foot terminal in 2011.
has more than 2.6 million square feet of paved surface. This includes 18,000 feet of runway length (the longest is 7,349 feet). It is one of a handful of commercial airports with two sets of parallel runways.
Boarded 113,807 passengers through October 2012, an increase of 15 percent from the same time last year.

Numbers don’t lie.

And what the numbers say about the Grand Forks International Airport (GFK) is that, according to Airport Authority Executive Director Patrick Dame, “We are very viable, very busy. Our community should be very proud of their airport.”

The Grand Forks Regional Airport Authority manages multi-faceted operations at the airport ensuring services centralized there support the region’s growth and development.

In the last five years, the Airport Authority has worked to increase commercial flight options for the region, improve its runways, and perhaps most notably, open a new terminal to meet growing needs and increased traffic.

“The importance of a viable airport to regional economic growth cannot be underestimated,” said Klaus Thiessen, Grand Forks Region EDC president and CEO. “The impressive services available through our airport help attract businesses to the region and strengthen our connections to the global marketplace.”

A commitment from area businesses to fly local, Dame says, is an important way to continually improve service in the community.

Commercial airlines
Three airlines now connect Grand Forks to all points of the world. The addition of United Airlines in October now provides a direct connection to the west with two daily flights to Denver. Delta offers 6 daily flights to Minneapolis.

Dame encourages travelers to compare options with United when making plans. “We have two main global alliances for world air services. That ease and convenience is important,” Dame said.

Having major carrier services in Grand Forks is a partnership, says Dame, between the community and the airlines. “It’s use it or lose it.”

From fields to tables, local plant is company's leading pasta producer

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:49:41 -0700

Pick up a box of macaroni & cheese, Campbell’s noodle soup, a prepackaged meal, or box of spaghetti and you could be buying pasta manufactured in Grand Forks using wheat and durum grown in the region and flour milled in Minot.

Philadelphia Macaroni Company is the secret behind countless food products, manufacturing pasta varieties for international private label and food service marketplaces, including Campbell’s. Grand Forks is home to the company’s largest plant.

The 140,000-square-foot plant can turn out more than 450,000 pounds of pasta per day, up to 3.5 million pounds a week. Plant Manager Tony Pierce said they ship out an average of 20 trucks per day.

By early November, Grand Forks will begin a new production line making long pasta – spaghetti, angel hair, lasagna - to be packaged under customers’ private labels. It’s one of their six production lines. Two are allergen free, said Pierce, meaning no eggs are used in the pasta produced on those lines.

In total, the plant makes pasta in more than 100 shapes and sizes. And each shape, Pierce says, may have different customer specifications.

“Grand Forks is our flagship,” said Linda Schalles, the company’s strategic communications manager.

With the newest equipment among the company’s three plants, Schalles said the Grand Forks plant is well suited for high volume, high speed, and high temperature drying requirements for many of its product lines.

The family-owned company, founded in 1914 by Italian immigrant Antonio Marano, is nearing its 100-year anniversary.

They developed a partnership with Campbell’s soup in the 1920s to manufacture noodles for alphabet soup and continue to supply Campbell’s today. In the 70s, Philadelphia Macaroni formulated one of the first commercially successful low-moisture pastas.

Today, they employ about 300 and have capacity to produce nearly 150 million pounds of pasta annually. They also own a flour mill in Minot, N.D. which supplies their plants. Grand Forks carries nearly 60 percent of the company’s total production capacity.

Schalles said. “North Dakota is the center of the world’s greatest wheat fields. And the temperatures are ideal to manufacture pasta. We don’t mind that it’s cold there.”

Praxis molds data, helps communities see possibilities

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:23:00 -0600

Artistic creations take many forms.

For Praxis Strategy Group, bits and pieces of data mold together helping shape communities’ futures.

From their offices in downtown Grand Forks, Praxis has gained national recognition for its ability to delve into communities and help develop economic growth strategies.

Whether it’s housing or feasibility studies, opportunity analyses, or competitive assessments, the Praxis team carefully constructs pictures from numbers, interviews, and background facts.

“We tie the community pulse with the data,” said Associate Matthew Leiphon.

Since forming Praxis in 1994, CEO Delore Zimmerman and his team have become known world-wide for their skills conducting research, developing strategies, and developing and managing activities that help communities assess and build on strengths as a means to progressive economic development.

From the city to the state level, Praxis helps draft a vision for what can be. When they begin a project, they engage as many stakeholders as possible, beginning to uncover and link assets.

They partner with other experts throughout the country in their work, extending their reach and strengthening their impact. “We can be a small firm and even better than we are because we partner,” Zimmerman said. “In North Dakota, if you don’t learn to reach out, you’ll have a pretty small market.”

“It’s easy to do national level service work from here,” said Mark Schill, vice president of research.

While knowledge, they say, is easy to acquire, Praxis’s strength is in the skills needed to communicate it back in relevant ways to help communities execute change.

“Because things are changing so fast, we are doing more frequent and shorter strategies than we used to 10 years ago,” said Zimmerman. “Now, we develop 1,000 day road maps.”

Their research and strategic development helps pinpoint what can be done immediately to begin effecting change. “With a road map, you can act on it and shift as you go,” Schill added.

Their clients, Zimmerman said, appreciate the sense of urgency required. “Some communities we are working with have 12 to 15 percent unemployment and want something quick.”

EGF manufacturer turns out quality

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 09:47:55 -0600

Northern Valley Machine designs and builds custom fixtures for its manufacturing clients from its East Grand Forks production center.

Ask Northern Valley Machine’s owner, Frank Walski, if he considers himself an entrepreneur and he’ll swiftly respond, “No. I’m a machinist.”

He’s turned one lathe into an expansive production epicenter in East Grand Forks.

Northern Valley Machine and its 65 employees are turning out more than 3,000 projects annually. The company has become a dependable vendor for many regional and national manufacturers including Marvin Windows, Polaris, Arctic Cat, Ideal Aerosmith, and Boeing.

Their clients span to both coasts and into Mexico and Canada. Nearly 100 percent of their work is shipped outside the immediate area.

They are nearing completion of their fourth expansion in 10 years, bumping their total footprint to 37,000 square feet.

Northern Valley Machine evolved from machining parts for regional companies to designing and building prototypes and custom manufacturing equipment for clients. They also build UL listed Industrial Control Panels, meaning they meet the highest industry standards. Paul Olson, electrical engineering manager, says, “We take pride in our work which equates to a better value for our customers.”

Walski says while they do a few volume production jobs today, most of their projects are one-off prototypes they design and build to client specifications to support the clients’ in-house production processes.

It’s a niche that has evolved mostly, he says, by word-of-mouth and the foresight to be responsive. “Once you get your shot, you better be quick about it,” he says.

“Our specialty is working for engineers,” Walski said. “It’s what we’re good at.”

Nate Satterlund, mechanical engineering manager, says, “We have the ambition to take on difficult projects.”

Idea rolls into product manufacturing niche

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:16:07 -0600

Rugged, stylish, weather-resistant, and innovative.

These words can be used to describe Retrax retractable truck bed covers. They can also define Applied Products, the Grand Forks company where the covers are manufactured.

“We’re a success story. Especially for the automotive accessories market,” says General Manager Scott Fuller. “We’ve weathered some bumps and come out stronger.”

Tim Mulvaney, founder and CEO, opened his first shop April 1, 1997 to manufacture – by hand – the retractable cover he designed. Fifteen days later, he had four feet of water in his shop as he and the community fought the flood of ’97.

Undeterred, Mulvaney began driving throughout the region, marketing the cover to auto dealers. Farmers began buying them. On weekends, he’d put brochures in truck windows at building supply store parking lots, selling hundreds as a result.

“The support was there because it was made in Grand Forks,” said Mulvaney. “The Red River Valley support was important. Without it there’d be nothing today.”

Product sales, said Fuller, have increased every year except during the recession of 2008-09.

The company is currently in the midst of its third expansion. By September, they will have a 70,000 square feet footprint in Grand Forks. And, Fuller says, they’re already thinking about the next expansion. From one employee (Mulvaney) to 77, their current expansion will add up to 10 more.

Grand Forks company perks up work spaces

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:29:34 -0600

Opportunity knocked and Sandy and Doug Norby are glad they opened the door.

If they hadn’t, says Doug, “I probably would have tried selling computers and we probably would have gone broke.”

Instead, the Norbys have grown Norby’s Work Perks into one of the region’s largest interior commercial office space design companies thanks to an invitation in the mid-80s from Greenberg Realty owner Art Greenberg, to design and supply furnishings for a new office suite.

At the time, they were selling and servicing office machines. “We got pure lucky that he called when he did,” he said.

With four interior designers, led by Sandy, and a team of marketing, operations, and installation professionals, Norby’s Work Perks specializes in transforming and creating functional interior office environments.

Earlier this month, Norby’s Work Perks was notified they are among 22 of 250 associates in the U.S. named Best in Class for 2011 by Haworth, their supplier. The prestigious recognition, said Doug, is based on performance in marketing, operations, financial, and customer service satisfaction.

From farmers moving their bookkeeping from the kitchen table to a dedicated office space, to a corporation expanding into a new office complex, Norby’s offers solutions.

The company designs office furniture and modular wall solutions that provide flexibility for expansions and ever-changing work environments.

Sky is not the limit for GFK Flight Support

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:10:24 -0600

It’s no secret that Grand Forks is an aviation mecca, of sorts, with a renowned flight school, Air Force base, and one of the busiest commercial airports in the country.

As the airport’s fixed based operator (FBO), GFK Flight Support services all aviation needs at the airport, which, Chief Pilot Sean Varian says, fall into four primary areas: fueling, housing, line services, and flying.

“GFK Flight Support is very important to the airport because they are the interface with our business community and public and they service the aircraft that fly in daily. Having a first class front door like GFK Flight Support is a great asset to our community,” said Patrick Dame, Grand Forks Regional Airport Authority executive director.

The surge of oil-related activity in Western North Dakota is beginning to fuel increased activity for GFK Flight Support, says Varian.

It is becoming increasingly common for the Grand Forks airport to be used as a layover point for private aircraft delivering personnel to the Bakken. Varian says there is virtually no place to keep planes or flight crews in Western North Dakota so many are choosing to come here while waiting to make return flights with their oil executive passengers.

And with the increase in local companies providing services in Western North Dakota, GFK Flight Support has begun working to help coordinate private flights.

Steamatic care goes beyond cleaning

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:32:35 -0600

When Amazon.com was expanding its Grand Forks footprint last summer, an old manufacturing building needed to be converted into an office complex.

Marcus Benoit’s Steamatic team converged on the site and within 10 days finished removing dust from ceilings, walls, floors and air ducts; sanitizing surfaces; and deep cleaning every square inch to ready the building for a new mission.

“Steamatic was an instrumental partner, coming in on the front end, to help ensure Amazon’s expansion and continued growth in our community,” said Keith Lund, Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation vice president. “They were extremely responsive, mobilized quickly, and met extremely tight project timelines.”

Most people, said Lund, are not aware of Steamatic’s comprehensive services.

“We’re often viewed as a carpet cleaning company,” Benoit says, “but that’s really a small part of our service line and overall capabilities as a full service cleaning and restoration company.”

Disaster restoration work after water, fire or mold damaged property, is the heart of this Red River Valley enterprise, which Benoit has steered since 1998. He expanded into Fargo, purchasing the franchise there in 2003.

Steamatic is also frequently called into homes and businesses for routine deep cleanings or specialized projects to remove dust, debris, and allergens. “We see a lot more allergies and respiratory issues,” he says, which he attributes, in part, to newer construction techniques designed to increase energy efficiencies.

Company unscrambling science, finding virus treatments

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:04:27 -0600

In this part of the country, geese are often associated with hunting, not saving lives.

An innovative company in Grand Forks is working to change the way we think of these birds. Avianax is closing in on developing a treatment for viral diseases, including West Nile and avian flu viruses, using goose antibodies.

Avianax is a partnership between the UND Research Foundation and Interglobal Biologics, Inc., an affiliate of South Dakota- based Schiltz Goose Farms, Inc., which operates a commercial goose farm.

“UNDRF’s commitment is the developmental, ours is the technology James Schiltz developed and producing the raw product,” said Avianax Chief Operation Officer Richard Glynn. “It’s been this coming together of a private – public partnership that’s made it successful.”

“Our research university is a tremendous asset to the community,” said Grand Forks Region EDC President & CEO Klaus Thiessen. “UND’s partnership in Avianax and potential commercial opportunities that may result from their research have real potential to attract a growing life sciences sector to our region.”

Grand Forks plant helps keep troops road-ready

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:16:42 -0600

When soldiers head out on over-the-road missions around the globe, one Grand Forks manufacturer is along for the ride.

American Defense Industries (ADI) and its owner, Tim Pribula, grew from the seeds of agricultural equipment manufacturing.

From agricultural equipment to components, accessories, and conversion kits for military vehicles, Pribula has built ADI into a reputable defense contractor.

“We manufacture replacement parts that are required to keep our forces fighting,” he said. Parts include items as small as a brace, to something as large as an entire dump body for a truck.

At any time, Pribula says, ADI employees are working on up to 50 different contracts and they ship an average of two semi-loads of completed contracts weekly. In an average year they complete approximately 350 individual contracts for the Department of Defense.