Utah Manufacturing Expo held

Thursday, November 10, 2005

By Jeff DeMoss

Standard-Examiner staff - jdemoss@standard.net

Ogden site for industry expo

OGDEN -- Since the beginning of the year, leaders from state and local government, industry and education have been banding together in a new partnership to make the Top of Utah a world-class center of manufacturing.

Their vision took a step forward Wednesday when the nascent Northern Utah Manufacturing Alliance held its first manufacturing expo in downtown Ogden. Representatives from local manufacturing facilities, Weber State University, Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College, the Governor's Office of Economic Development and others met to discuss how to create something larger than the sum of its parts through cooperation.

Manufacturers shared their recent efforts to become more productive and efficient, educators highlighted developing programs designed to supply the local manufacturing sector with a reliable stream of qualified employees, and state officials talked about current government efforts to make Utah a more attractive place to do business.

"NUMA will be a vehicle to pollinate knowledge between companies," said Don Greenfield, director of operations for Clearfield-based manufacturer Futura Industries. "There's nothing like seeing something work somewhere else, and then being able to apply it to your own company."

NUMA is designed to create an "economic cluster" in which northern Utah is promoted as a single destination for aerospace and composites firms, said Rhonda Boren, director of marketing and economic development for Ogden-Weber ATC. "These are emerging markets that are developing in Weber County and all of northern Utah," Boren said. "Through cooperation, we're trying to build some critical mass, where people can learn from each other and help each other."

NUMA chairman Guy Letendre said the alliance is based on three major strategies. "It's about creating world-class management, world-class companies, and a world-class environment," he said.

Educators involved in NUMA focus on management, while individual manufacturers handle the company aspect.

"Companies have their ups and downs, and we want to find a way to keep good employees in the area during those downs," said Kristie Nielsen, a marketing coordinator at Weber State and secretary of the NUMA executive committee. "We want to create opportunities across companies, so if people are laid off from one, another might be able to hire them."