By By KATHIE HEMPEL / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Southwestern Michigan Economic Growth Alliance Inc., formed in April 1982, is 25 years old.
It celebrated with its annual meeting Wednesday at Pennelwood Retreat Center in Berrien Springs..
Attendees were treated to a retrospective of the organization's successes and growth.
"The organization also looks to the future with one new business, Repellex, already opening in 2007. We have a very pro-business environment and a positive climate for new business ventures. Repellex currently has four employees and is located at 1445 S. Third St.," said Sharon Tyler, executive director of the Alliance.
Alliance President Michael Dreher said the future depends on the Michigan economy. He said he thinks the southwest portion of the state is in better shape than the eastern areas.
"We need to have the infrastructure in place. We need good schools and trained people. For now, it depends on our own people, the small specialty businesses. The big corporations are still going to China and Mexico, but I believe they will come back," said Dreher.
They are not coming back soon enough though, he said. It is the smaller, specialized companies like Repellex that will make the difference.
Repellex produces non-toxic, 100 percent natural products to protect plants from everything from deer to gophers, moles to beavers and even household pets, grasshoppers and mosquitoes.
The new business owners join many others who got their start in the area with the guidance of the alliance. In its early days, as the Niles Economic Development Corp., the group encouraged individuals wishing to test business ideas to do so in Niles.
In 1985, a lease agreement was signed with the City of Niles for the Kawneer buildings. The Center for Business Development was opened in a 76,00 square foot manufacturing building, which sat on the land now occupied by the new YMCA facility, and became an incubator for new business ventures.
Bill Racine, an owner of Ramer Products Inc., was recognized at the meeting as the first tenant of the Center for Business Development.
"The Center had 56 tenants, 18 graduated and 15 businesses closed. The number of jobs created from 1985 through 1990 were 204," Tyler said.
Ramer remained in the facility until 1988, when it graduated to its current Industrial Road location in the Niles Industrial Park. Ramer Products is a leader in the design and production of quality fittings designed for production leak testing and charging applications, which require safe, leak-free connections.
On May 1,1996, Innovative Products Unlimited Inc. leased 1,350 square feet at the Center. The company with its PVC pipe equipment grew so quickly, they became the first graduates of the Center by October of that year moving to the Niles Industrial Park where they now have two buildings.
"The original founders of the company were Fritz Heerdt and Bob Moore. Our main focus has always been health care equipment for hospitals, nursing facilities and private homes. While we are mainly an assembly line facility, we have done more custom work in recent years," said Bill Becker of Innovative Products.
Some of the company's more recent custom designs have included some ball and gymnastic mat racks for the new Niles YMCA. While the focus on health care remains, they have expanded into a line of pool products as well.
"We are always on the lookout for new product ideas. Approximately three or four months ago we were approached by the bariatric industry to create a very large chair. We are always looking for new products to add to our line and with the two buildings we have plenty of room to do that," Becker said.
Express 1 is perhaps the center's largest success story. The trucking company, which guarantees express delivery of any size load for businesses across the U.S., leased 1,070 square feet of space at the Center in 1992.
They began with three employees. By the time the company left the center in 1995 to build their 10,000 square foot facility in the Andrews Farm Industrial Park in Buchanan, they employed 47 individuals.
By 2001, they had added an additional 10,000 square feet to their building. Today Express 1 has 90 employees, 300 contracted truckers and continues to add to their Buchanan facilities.
The Center's manufacturing facilities were razed with Clean Michigan initiative funds in 2001. At the time of the closing the Center's 36 businesses were relocated throughout the area.