Kiger's Notebook

Action in Dodge Center

A new antique and gift shop — Cottage Treasures — opened its doors in Dodge Center about a week ago.

This makes the third business for owners Theresa and Lyle Hoaglund. They already own Center Auto, which is in the same building that houses Cottage Treasures, and Mantorville Gifts in Mantorville.Expect a selection of antiques, cards, crafts and gifts in the store at 210 Highway Street West similar to that in Mantorville Gifts.

It is across the street from where a new Subway restaurant is preparing to open.Beside enjoying working with people, Lyle Hoaglund says this store made sense for many reasons.

“The space was available. A tenant (Ed’s Auto Repair) moved out of this building,” he said. “We had plenty of inventory. So we decided to remodel a bit and open a shop.

”Right now the Hoaglunds are staffing the store as well as Center Auto, but Lyle says they may add an employee or two in the future.

McNeilus Steel expanding its reach

Here's a story on McNeilus Steel of Dodge Center and its current expansion projects. 

For the record, I had a completely different and word play riddled lead on this story, but it was replaced by fuddy duddy editors for a 'straight' lead.

Here the special director's cut version of the lead as a special bonus feature for my blog readers:

DODGE CENTER – One area company is working to strengthen its mettle and extend its market in preparation for the dented economy to straighten out.

Here's how it appeared in today's dead tree edition:

DODGE CENTER — One area company is expanding in Wisconsin and North Dakota in hopes of taking advantage of a reviving economy.

McNeilus Steel will open a new warehouse in Fond du Lac, Wis., and a processing facility in Fargo, N.D., said Dan Blaisdell, chief financial officer for the steel company.

“We were affected by the recession. Business has slowed down in the last year. Now we’re hoping that we’ll be ready to go when things pick up here and move on,” Blaisdell said.

McNeilus produces and sells steel pipes, rolls, tubing, sheets and plates, and it performs contract fabrication for manufacturers. The fabrication is a growing segment for the Dodge Center company. McNeilus Steel  is not part of the McNeilus Truck in Dodge Center, which is owned by Oshkosh, Wis.-based Oshkosh Corp.

McNeilus Steel is expected to open the 110,000-square-foot warehouse in Fond du Lac by mid-October, Blaisdell said. It will be staffed by 15 employees.

“We decided we wanted to expand in eastern Wisconsin,” he says. “It will open up access to new sales. It will make it handy, and it’s an opportunity to expand in Oshkosh and Milwaukee.”

McNeilus also is building a 96,600-square-foot facility in Fargo, equipped with processing machinery previously only used in Dodge Center. The $15 million project will include a $7 million cut-to-length machine.

The company plans to break ground on the project Thursday, and the building is expected to open next summer. It will extend McNeilus Steel’s geographic sales range and make the Fargo site more self-sufficient. Currently, the three cut-to-length-line machines in Dodge Center handle prep work for Fargo.

McNeilus employs about 80 in Fargo and this expansion will need about 15 additional workers at the start, he said.

Meanwhile, McNeilus has been adding space and fabrication capabilities to its facilities in Dodge Center, which cover about 500,000 square feet and employ about 220 people.

McNeilus closing Dexter plant

Here's an interesting piece by writer Laura Gossman. I remember when the Development Corp. of Austin built this plant in Dexter. I wonder what they will do with it now? I believe this project landed some state money also.

McNeilus Trucking and Manufacturing has announced that its plant in Dexter will be 

closing.

Parent company Oshkosh Corp. spokeswoman Ann Stawski said 24 employees will lose their jobs and four employees will be transferred to the plant in Dodge Center.

The plant in Dexter built concrete mixer drums, but the demand for those products has tapered in recent months.

"It's a continuation of the economy, and we had to adjust our production," Stawski said. "There's been a decrease in residential and commercial construction, and there's been the same downward trend for concrete materials."

The closing was announced to employees on Friday, but Stawski had no details on when employees will have their final day.

The Dexter plant was built by the Development Corp. of Austin in November 2002 with a loan from Mower County and was leased to Oshkosh Corp.

The Dodge Center plant also announced layoffs this month; 40 jobs were eliminated, and 125 people are being laid off for 60 days.

The company also had laid off 50 employees last February, with 20 of those jobs coming from the Dodge Center factory.

It's part of a trend across southeastern Minnesota. In the past six months, several other area companies have laid off employees.

Earlier this month, Herff-Jones announced it would close its photo lab and memory book location in Lewiston and eliminate hundreds of jobs. In December, Northern Engraving in Spring Grove announced it would close it 208-person factory. In August, TRW announced it would reduce it Winona work force by 100 employees. 

Federal-Mogul in Lake City is in the midst of layoffs, too. A complete number hasn't been released by the company.

New energy deal blowin' in the wind

Here's a piece by Bob Freund on a local wind power deal.

I wrote about Nature Energies a while back when the Rochester branch moved into a new office.

The Rochester-based branch of a French energy company is buying stakes in 56 wind turbines at the two farms now run by the area’s pioneer wind farmer, Dodge Center businessman Garwin McNeilus.

Nature Energies has agreed to purchase portions of the 28 windpower projects in two wind farms at Dodge Center and Adams. All are managed by McNeilus and his son Grant McNeilus, but have individual owners from the McNeilus family and from related non-profit organizations, Nature Energies vice president Jeff Cook-Coyle said today.

The sale is underway, but will be completed in the future. The value of the deal is being kept private, Cook-Coyle said.

The Dodge Center farm contains 41 wind turbines and the Adams farm has 15. Together they can generate as much as 65 megawatts (million watts) electricity over a single hour.

Nature Energies will obtain ownership of available parts of the wind projects. The parties also expect to collaborate on future wind projects, a written announcement said Tuesday.

Nature Energies also currently is working on developing 450-megawatt wind farm in Dodge County.

The Rochester office is the U.S. operations branch for Nature Energies SAS of Paris. Nature Energies has 115 megawatts of wind farms in France and is developing solar energy plants in Europe as well.

Verizon Wireless upgrades

It wasn’t just a cup of coffee that jolted Rochester area Verizon Wireless users into action this morning.

An “espresso” upgrade of Internet speed awaited them on their wireless connections.

When logging onto the Internet via a wireless modem or through their Verizon telephone, the letters “EV” should have popped up on whatever screen they were using.

That EV, which stands for Evolution-Data Optimized (I have no idea why) , means wireless connection speeds are turbo-boosted up to the same level of a tradional broadband link.

Verizon says people connecting in the Rochester area can now expect average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second to 1.4 megabits per second. That means they can download a small PowerPoint presentation or a large PDF file in about eight seconds, according to the company.

The upgrade also allows local users to have access to VCAST, a service that offers downloadable music, videos and games.

Improving the company’s existing high-speed network north of Rochester along U.S. 52 from the Twin Cities and west in Dodge County has upgraded the coverage from south of Rochester along U.S. 63 to Highway 30 in downtown Stewartville and east of Rochester to 30th Avenue Southeast.

Renewable energy biz grows in Roch.

Nature Energies, a France-based renewable energy firm, expanded its U.S. headquarters in Rochester last week by moving into a much larger office.

“It is about 21⁄2 times larger,” says Jeff Cook-Coyle of the lower level office at 2720 Superior Drive N.W.
More room was needed as the office grew to four people including Cook-Coyle.

“And there’s room for more, which we’re expecting to hire later this year,” he said.

Nature Energies is driving a large wind farm project near Dodge Center.

McNeilus Co.cuts jobs

Here's a quick piece by the astute Bob Freubd about a layoff at McNeilus Cos.:

Vehicle manufacturer McNeilus Cos. cut back its work force companywide by about 50 employees late last week due in part to a slowdown in sales of concrete mixers.

About 20 of the layoffs came from McNeilus headquarters factory in Dodge Center, said Ann Stawski, spokeswoman for parent company Oshkosh Corp.

The remainder came from other production and field operations, such as the company’s 20 branches across the United Sates and Canada.

The laid-off employees represent less than 10 percent of the McNeilus work force, Stawski said.

Current business conditions helped to trigger the reductions. “Our concrete mixer business is operating at sharply reduced levels due to the slowdown in residential construction,” as well as another factor affecting sales, Oshkosh announced in its quarterly report on Feb. 1, when the cutback took place.

McNeilus produces concrete mixers and refuse hauling bodies and mounts them on chassis for trucks.

Traffic pile-up on U.S. 14 near Dodge Center

Watch out. We've had some nasty accidents this morning.

The latest is a crash involving at least six vehicles reported at about 8:40 a.m. on U.S. 14 near Dodge Center.

Few details are available, but traffic on U.S. 14 is backed up for miles.

Be careful out there.

Iraqi prez + Hubbell House

The Hubbell House in Mantorville recently added another famous signature to its guest book.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ate at the historic restaurant during a recent visit to Mayo Clinic, according to the Dodge Center Star Record.

A translation of his note was printed in the newspaper:

"We had a good night and delicious food.

It's a good restaurant and good service. I hope you grow more, and I greet the employees and the owner.
You guys deserve to have a democratic country like America and I'm happy to see restaurants like this in America.

I hope you succeed more in your work."

Area business win Quality Awards

Many area businesses/ entities have won the 2006 Minnesota Quality Award from the Minnesota Council for Quality. Here's the list:

• Mayo Clinic's Cardiovascular Diseases Department
• Mayo Health System
• The Stewartville school system
• Triton Public Schools
• Austin Medical Center
• Winona Health
• Albert Lea Health Cdenter

They got the honors at an event Tuesday in Bloomington. I should have more in on this soon.