Manufacturing-Works Forms Alliance with the National Composite Center to Grow High-Tech Jobs

Added February 9th, 2009

Larry Stewart, Center Director of Manufacturing-Works announced today it has formed an alliance with the National Composite Center (NCC). The non-profit has joined NCC’s member network to use the Center’s resources to cultivate new business growth through advanced materials.

Manufacturing-Works, in partnership with the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming, provides assistance, training and engineering solutions to technology-based companies and manufacturers. The organization’s goal is to help companies create wealth.

“Wyoming is the least populated state in the union,” said George Rex, Alliance Manager for Manufacturing-Works. “Our primary industries have been built on extractors like coal, oil, coal bed methane and trona. In order to diversify our state and create jobs we need to develop manufacturing and assist technology to market. By tying into the advanced materials market through NCC we’ll be able to establish high-tech companies poised for growth.”

Manufacturing-Works plans to use NCC’s incubation services to grow Wyoming companies and then transplant that technology back to Wyoming. NCC, a not for profit, has acquired nearly $40 million of infrastructure and equipment for a wide range of composite processes and capabilities and is the only total economic development solution for advanced materials in the US.

“NCC recognized early on the vital importance of investing in and supporting advanced materials technologies-related companies to help grow not only the local economy but bring that same capability to other states like Wyoming,” said Lou Luedtke, President and CEO of NCC. “The development of our unique business model has resulted in a network that consists of scientists, production, manufacturing and business people able to exchange information and ideas in a nurturing environment that stretches beyond the borders of Ohio. Through this network we’ve built a unique atmosphere for problem solving - a difficult combination to find in a traditional incubator. Typically, incubators tend to be either science or business oriented with little practical manufacturing experience. NCC and its partners provide it all.”

An 80 Percent Success Rate!

Research shows that in the first three years of company formation, 90 percent of start-up businesses fail. In the university incubation setting, the failure-rate percentage falls to 70 percent. Due to the total solution and vast network of resources that NCC provides, its success-rate percentage for start-ups is more than 80 percent. Since the Center established its program, it has nurtured 50 companies and produced more than 600 jobs. Alliances like the one with Wyoming support the Center’s concept of a global supply chain that connects the intellectual capital and expertise of different states for the ultimate benefit of individual regions.

Visit the National Composit Center website