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Mark Obradovich, right, greets state and federal officials. Obradovich is managing director of Ingeteam’s Milwaukee facility. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin examines a part on Ingeteam’s shop floor.

Ingeteam sees path to finally surpassing original job goal

Ashley Smart, staff writer

SPANISH COMPANY Ingeteam, a manufacturer specializing in energy conversion, could soon surpass its original goal of having 275 employees at its Milwaukee facility.

Ingeteam opened its $15 million Milwaukee facility, located in the Menomonee Valley at 3550 W. Canal St., in 2011. Generators and converters for wind turbines and solar power inverters are manufactured there.

While the company was slow to add jobs in the years following the opening of the facility, the addition of two new production lines within the next year could double Ingeteam’s current Milwaukee workforce of approximately 150 people.

When it was first opening the facility, the company received $1.6 million in federal stimulus tax credits, a $500,000 loan from the state and $4.5 million in state tax credits to locate in Wisconsin. Ingeteam also received a $2 million forgivable loan from Milwaukee’s Redevelopment Authority in June 2010 to finance the construction of its Milwaukee facility. A condition of that loan was that the company reach 275 employees by 2015, a date that was later pushed back to 2020.

Ingeteam only reached 164 employees by 2020 and had to repay part of its forgivable loan, according to Department of City Development officials.

“There’s this hunger right now to make Milwaukee the capital of the renewable energy revolution,” said Garan Chivinski, human resources manager at Ingeteam, during an interview with BizTimes Milwaukee.

During a meet and greet in late October, Mayor Cavalier Johnson, County Executive David Crowley, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh visited Ingeteam’s Milwaukee campus to learn more about the company’s plans to use Inflation Reduction Act tax credits to expand its operations.

“At the end of the day, this is the largest investment in clean energy that we’ve ever had in this country,” said Walsh. “It’s really significant what this bill’s going to do for this country.”

Walsh said the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act, were all aimed at lowering everyday costs and supporting local governments.

“What you’re seeing here in Milwaukee is what we want to see around the rest of the country,” said Walsh. “We want to see these kinds of opportunities and this type of growth happen.”

INCREASED PRODUCTION IN MILWAUKEE

Chivinski said Ingeteam plans to return one of its production lines to the U.S. as well as one other new production line.

“We have 50% of the facility that is used to build the wind turbines. In the past, we had built small numbers of converters and inverters for solar fields. We will be bringing production back from Spain for that in the coming year,” said Chivinski. “We’ll be able to also bring our production of the EV charging stations here as well.”

Ingeteam has also signed a long-term contract with Fincantieri Marinette Marine to build a special kind of turbine that will be installed within naval ships. The company will start building those turbines for Navy ships next year.

“If you put all those (production lines) together, we could theoretically double our headcount (in Milwaukee),” said Chivinksi. “We have a lot of really new, exciting energy here.”

Mark Obradovich, managing director at Ingeteam’s Milwaukee facility, believes funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will allow Ingeteam to become more competitive.

“It will allow our customers to consider purchasing locally, and it will make us more cost competitive when they’re looking at things that are purchased elsewhere,” said Obradovich. n

CR Industries provides metal fabrication services for the restaurant industry

CUDAHY-BASED CR Industries Inc. is a metal fabrication shop undergoing a complete transformation. Founded by Clarence Weisflog in 1985 as a family-run business, CR Industries started with just two employees and three machines. Over the course of the next 37 years, Weisflog and his two sons grew the company to 45 employees and 44,000 square feet of space.

The company, which was recently acquired by former Lucas-Milhaupt Inc. leaders Rich Ballenger and Erik Thompson, manufactures fabricated metal components for various industries. CR Industries has found success in creating parts for point-of-purchase displays, including drive-thru menu boards. The company’s boards are then finished by Brookfield-based The Howard Company.

“If you’ve been in a drive-thru, there’s a good chance you’ve sat in front of a menu board that we’ve made,” said Ballenger. “We make the metal component, and then our customers finish it and sell it to McDonald’s or Sonic.”

CR Industries also does a lot of business with Town of Genesee-based Generac, making safety vents and muffler clamps for generators.

“While we are a metal fab shop, our core business is repeat parts,” said Thompson. “It’s a little bit different than a traditional metal fab shop. Traditional metal fab shops are making a bunch of different parts.”

Following their acquisition of CR Industries, both Ballenger and Thompson have been working to transform the company into a full-service metal design and fabricating shop with welding, powder coating and packaging capabilities. They’ve already committed six figures of capital toward new equipment as part of their 90-day transformation plan.

“One of our big things here is that we can start at laser cutting and go all the way through powder coating,” said Ballenger.

Thompson said both his and Ballenger’s experience make them the best fit to lead the company into the future, as they both have high-level professional management skills but still have a “blue collar” attitude. Ballenger has a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School; Thompson has a master’s degree in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

“Hard work and getting dirty is part of our DNA. When you look at traditional metal fabrication businesses, generally speaking, they’re smaller and family-owned, which means that they don’t have a professional level of management, which both Rich and I bring,” Thompson said.

Both Thompson and Ballenger have been focused on getting rid of operational and clerical inefficiencies at the business. They’ve also been rearranging the plant to provide more space for employees. Ballenger said a lot of the work they’ve done is to make sure employees feel like they are

A CR Industries employee welds one of the company’s drive-thru menu boards.

CR Industries workers powder coat parts for Generac.

CR INDUSTRIES

5757 S. Pennsylvania Ave., Cudahy

INDUSTRY: Metal fabrication EMPLOYEES: 45 crifabricators.com

working for a real, professional company. Whether that be replacing tools with the latest devices available or providing a stipend to purchase steel-toed boots for the shop floor, Thompson and Ballenger have emphasized supporting their workers.

A new break room will also be constructed to free up space on the shop floor and give workers a clean, updated place to relax. A new website for CR Industries is set to launch in the coming weeks and an updated logo and signage is also in the works.

“We’re lean manufacturing kind of people. So, how can we make better, faster, higher-quality parts. That’s a lot of the innovation we’re working on,” said Ballenger. n

ASHLEY SMART

Reporter

P / 414-336-7144 E / ashley.smart@biztimes.com T / @Biz_Ashley

THE CURRENT CRE MARKET FROM A COMMERCIAL BANKING PERSPECTIVE

By Pat Lawton, Senior Vice President and Manager, Wisconsin Commercial Real Estate Group, Johnson Financial Group

WHAT TYPES OF PROJECTS DOES JOHNSON FINANCIAL GROUP GET INVOLVED IN?

Johnson Financial Group is an active construction lender in all sectors with a heightened emphasis on the multi-family and industrial segments. We also work with companies on refinancing and funding acquisitions for all types of properties.

ARE SUPPLY CHAIN PRESSURES EASING?

There has been some relief in certain materials such as lumber, but other items such as electrical components remain difficult and expensive to obtain. Supply chain problems are resulting in both cost and timing issues on new developments. Developers are reacting by purchasing crucial items far in advance. One of our multi-family developers recently bought the windows for an entire project more than a year in advance of planned installation.

WHAT ABOUT LABOR AND THE OVERALL COST PICTURE?

From the developer’s perspective, declining material costs may be overshadowed by increasing labor costs— and, potentially even worse, lack of labor availability.

Now, rising interest rates create further challenges, especially for low to moderate-income housing where rents often are limited based on county median incomes. Fortunately, there are grants and other funding options available for these developments, but that process takes time, and many builders are scrambling to begin construction amidst escalating costs and interest rates.

ARE THERE ANY EMERGING TRENDS IN MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING?

“Build-to-rent” communities have proven successful in Arizona, Florida and elsewhere and are now coming to Milwaukee and the Midwest. A typical project consists of up to several hundred units in one- and two-residence structures. These are whole low-density communities built for renters rather than homeowners. One big question mark is how maintenance will work on all these individual units over time with individual roofs, garages, walkways, etc. in a more varied—and colder—climate, like Wisconsin.

WHAT ABOUT BUSINESS PROPERTY OWNERS—ARE THERE TRENDS YOU’RE SEEING THERE?

Sale lease-backs are proving attractive to many business owners, particularly those in the industrial sector, who may want to harvest equity and increase liquidity from the sale of their properties at today’s attractive industrial real estate prices. A business that owns and operates its own building can sell to investors with an agreement in place to lease the space for, say, 10-15 years.

ANY ADVICE TO COMMERCIAL BORROWERS IN TODAY’S MARKETPLACE?

Start the process early and build a strong relationship with your financial partner. Together, you can work through the current unpredictable, uncertain economic environment we’re facing to keep your goals on track. Search for a partner, like Johnson Financial Group, that is well capitalized, provides local decision-making and knows your market inside and out.