The Manufacturing Summit, part of the annual BizTech Conference & Expo, will feature top executives from four prominent manufacturers based in the metro Milwaukee area.
The summit will be held from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 30 at the Expo, held in the Wisconsin Exposition Center at State Fair Park in West Allis.
This year’s panel includes:
• Mark Rhyan, executive vice president and chief operations officer of Sargento Foods Inc., based in Plymouth. The cheese producer has more than 1,300 employees and sells cheese to both food service and retail customers.
While the economy has retracted over the past year, Sargento has grown its employment, adding 75 to 100 new workers, Rhyan said.
“Sargento and much of the diversified food industry doesn’t have the same ups and downs of the economy – people still have to eat,” he said. “The restaurant trade is down, but the retail trade is doing quite well today.”
• Steve Dyer, CEO of Dickten Masch Plastics LLC in Nashota.
The injection molding company has expanded to value-added services such as engineering, analytical lab services and tooling, allowing it to help its customers design their components, select the right materials for it and design specialized tools and processes to build those components. The new services have helped Dickten Masch win more business as some OEM customers are downsizing their own operations.
• Mary Isbister, president of General MetalWorks Corp. (GenMet) in Mequon.
GenMet, a metal fabrication shop with 68 employees, specializes in serving OEMs that make heavy-duty vehicles, as well as companies that produce point-of-purchase displays. To create future growth, GenMet is marketing its services to manufacturers of wind power generators and other alternative energy sources, Isbister said. Many of those companies are based in Europe and have a limited U.S. presence.
“We’re pretty excited about it – some of the companies are selling here and there are several others that have just opened sales offices or have limited sales and manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.,” she said. “The Europeans are very attuned to the fact that the U.S. government has incentives and also has a requirement that a set amount of all energy will be supplied from alternative sources.”
• David Rolston, president/CEO of Hatco Corp. in Milwaukee.
Hatco Corp., a manufacturer of food warming, display and related equipment for the food service industry, has about 375 employee total. The company’s administration is based in Milwaukee, while its manufacturing is housed in Sturgeon Bay.
In October, 2008, Hatco opened a small manufacturing facility in China, after it relied on contract manufacturing there for more than 10 years.
“It got to the point where we had enough volume and headaches to justify doing it ourselves,” Rolston said. “(The Chinese operations) is primarily to serve that market. We’re bringing back a popup toaster from there now, and that’s the only one I foresee bringing back.”
Registration for the Manufacturing Summit closes at 5 p.m. today. For more information, visit http://expo.biztimes.com/events.cfm?id=10.
