PlastiCert benefits from all of the good and little of the bad sitting on the fringe of the highest concentration of plastics industry employment in the country.
According to a recent study1, the Upper Midwest, i.e. Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have more plastics employees per 1,000 non-farm employees than anywhere else in the country. A good deal of that concentration is due to the automotive industry.
PlastiCert sits right on the border of SW Wisconsin and can verify that the area is rich with expertise yet PlastiCert’s customer base is comprised of less than 1% automotive.
In addition to what the neighbors to the East bring to the region, PlastiCert is a part of the Minnesota Composites Cluster2, a regional consortium of composites companies. In Winona, the county seat near PlastiCert, plastics employment is more than 30 times what would be normally expected in a community of that size.
Aside from numerous private manufacturing entities, the area is home to Winona State University. WSU offers the only Composites Engineering Major in the United States which includes COMTEC, an educational and “for hire” test and analysis laboratory. Another resource is the University of Wisconsin –Stout, a polytechnic university, just 90 minutes away. Stout offers Plastics Engineering as well as Industrial Engineering majors. Add up all of the private and public entities, and PlastiCert has a wealth of tools and support to help maintain and grow our body of knowledge and offerings to new and prospective customers.
1 – SPI, “Size and Impact of the Plastics Industry on the US Economy”, (Washington DC, November 2012)
2 – MN Department of Employment and Economic Development, “Minnesota’s Composites Cluster”, Minnesota Economics Trends, December 2009
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