April 13 – How to finance your small business

Please don’t miss the opportunity, offered by the experts from our local banking partners and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in collaboration with the NET Incubator, to provide a financing workshop to better prepare small business or start-up companies on how to secure bank loans and understand other types of financing.

On the agenda:

• Start-up versus established companies
• Preparing for your application interview
• The role of the written business plan
• How your financial projections may impact your request
• Why are tax returns or an accountant’s compilations important
• Types of Bank Financing
• The importance of Credit, Cash Flow and Collateral
• How the Bank assesses risk
• What types of collateral will the bank consider and what value will they carry
• How the Bank evaluates your request
• The importance of Operating Agreements and Corporate Resolutions.

Guest Speakers:

Patrick Rastatter
Business Banking Officer, Security National Bank

Richard Whalen
Vice President, PNC Bank

Brock Burcham
Vice President, Merchants National Bank

Mark Keating
Loan Program Manager, SBDC, Inc

April 13, 2010
7:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Commerce Point, 20 S. Limestone St.
Free Coffee & Rolls
RSVP’s must received by April 12

About SBDC
The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has been an advocate and resource for small businesses throughout the Springfield and Clark County area since 1984. SBDC helps local business owners build vibrant and thriving enterprises by offering expert consultation, facility rental and assistance in the acquisition of capital and financing.

Unlike many SBDCs, the Springfield-Clark County SBDC employs a full-time loan officer and has funds available to loan. Its counselors represent a broad spectrum of business from manufacturing to minority businesses to Internet marketing and beyond. Each counselor has many years of experience in his area of expertise. Working individually or collectively, they offer solid advice for handling critical areas related to the growth of a business.

About NET Incubator
The National Environmental Technology (NET) Incubator provides an affordable head start to companies whose focus is environmental technology as well as a resource for larger, established companies who seek to diversify their product lines.

Technology incubators enable start-up firms and entrepreneurs to bring new ideas and technologies to market. With environmental technologies representing one of the fastest growing sectors worldwide, the need is evident.

The Incubator is located in the McLin International Center for Water Resources Management on CSU’s campus in Wilberforce, Ohio and is near one of the largest EPA research laboratories in the nation, The Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

>>Register to this event by e-mailing Amanda at ahorine@greaterspringfield.com

>> NET Incubator Web site

>> Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Web site

Quick overview – Springfield’s SBDC has lots of resources for biz

The following is a slideshow that was given at a recent HITS meeting (http://bit.ly/sehits) by Mark Anzur of the Small Business Development Center.  The SBDC is a great resource for business, and this slideshow highlights a lot of those resources.

>> Springfield OH SBDC – www.smbusdev.org
>> HITS Program – http://bit.ly/sehits

Green company converts waste to fuel briquettes

A RUF wood press

The administration for the US operation of RUF Maschenbau GmbH & Co. KG is located in Springfield, Ohio.   The relationship between the German-American Development Corporation, located in Springfield, and the German company, who keeps a sales rep in northeast Ohio, started last year.  A law firm out of Columbus that specializes in German clients referred the briquette maker to Folker Hemmann, head of the GADC.  The relationship has been a good one.

What is briquetting?

Briquetting is the process of turning organic and non-organic waste into brick-like shapes (briquettes) that then can be burned to produce heat.  On the organic side, RUF’s machines can make briquettes out of cotton, polystyrene, paper, wood, hay, flax, paper, cardboard, foam, tobacco, and millings.  Inorganic materials that can be shaped into briquettes include brass, bronze, steel wool, steel millings, aluminum, aluminum cans, zinc dust, graphite dust, copper, titanium, magnesium and grinding swarf.  The process was developed in the 1970s due to the energy crisis.

History of RUF

The Ruf Company of Germany (RUF Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG) was founded in 1969 when  Mr. Hans Ruf started a service company to bark trees.  In 1982, Ruf invented and patented his first trial press for making briquettes from organic residual materials, including wood.   In 1985, the first press was sold and is still working today.  They have continually expanded their company, building a new 17,000 sf facility in 1994, opening an office building in 2004, and expanding production space again in 2005 and 2008, reaching ca. 100,000 sf.   They have 90 employees and have sold over 2000 machines operating in over 90 countries.

German-American Development Corporation

In 1995, Folker Hemmann, head of the German-American Development Corporation, started his business by mailing letters of introduction to thousands of medium-sized German companies.  He put forth the value proposition that if a German company could find someone to sell to the US market, he could take care of establishing the company, maintaining the books, and navigating the regulations of US business for them.  And he would do it for a monthly fee with no long-term contract.  Since that time Hemmann has helped 8 companies cross the ocean and establish a presence in Springfield, Ohio.

>> RUF global homepage – www.brikettierpressen.de/home.php
>> About the company – http://bit.ly/iQQCr
>> Articles on briquetting Al, cast iron, wood – http://bit.ly/18a6Ie
>> Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwhRmUof26E

Persistence pays off – 10 years to attract German company to Springfield OH

GKS manager Andrew Wal operates out of GADC's space within the SBDC

A long courtship yields results

In 1995, Folker Hemmann, head of the German-American Development Corporation, started his business by mailing letters of introduction to thousands of medium-sized German companies.  He put forth the value proposition that if a German company could find someone to sell to the US market, he could take care of establishing the company, maintaining the books, and navigating the regulations of US business for them.  And he would do it for a monthly fee with no long-term contract.  Well, since that time Hemmann has helped 8 companies cross the ocean and establish a presence in Springfield, Ohio. 

One of the companies to get Hemmann’s letter was GKS, a German lifting and moving equipment company (jacks, dollies, and pumps).  Over the years, Hemmann visited them at industry trade shows and at their headquarters, keeping contact and nurturing the relationship.  When GKS and its parent Georg Kramp & Co KG decided to found a US company, the choice was easy, and so in 2005 and early 2006 they started GKS Lifting and Moving Solutions, LLC at the Springfield Technology Center where Folker is housed. 

The German parent company

GKS LLC is a subsidiary of Georg Kramp GmbH & Co KG in Fellbach/Germany (near Stuttgart).

Georg Kramp GmbH & Co KG was established in 1950 as a wholesaler for machinery and cutting tools. In the late 1960s, the started developing, manufacturing, and distributing lifting and moving equipment under the “GKS-Perfekt” brand (which means GKS-perfect in German).   The company currently has 29 employees.  GKS’s state-of-the-art standard products are engineered for safe and reliable use up to a maximum weight of 440,000 lbs. (200 tons).  The company’s equipment is most often used for the lifting up and transporting of heavy, but valuable machines and equipment. 

>> GKS’s US homepage – www.gksweb.com
>> GKS’s global website – www.gks-perfekt.com
>> About GKS Lifting – http://bit.ly/szCR4 

>> IMTS 2010 profile & booth – http://bit.ly/NIFsp
>> Thomas Net profile – http://bit.ly/rmBOU
>> Hotfrog profile – http://bit.ly/ikdNs

 >> SNS Article on incubator/SBDC – http://bit.ly/tJWSo
>> Small Business Development Center – www.smbusdev.org
>> German-American Development Corporation – www.gadc.com

Springfield OH company supplies key electronics for nuclear research

A close up of wiener and mesytec electronics

What Springfield, Ohio company has supplied such heavy government hitters as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the US Air Force, NASA and even the Smithsonian Institution?  It’s the US Headquarters of a German firm that has been doing advanced electronics work for 50 years by the name of Wiener, Plein & Baus (pronounced vee-ner, pline, and bouse).

Atom smashers + renewed interest in nuclear energy

I haven’t had a chance to use my German for quite some time, but I did today as I met with Dr. Andreas Ruben, President of the US operation.  We talked about particle accelerators, “atom smashers,” how they’re used in nuclear physics research, how the biggest one is in the Large Haldron Collider in Switzerland, and how the US wants that title back.  Ruben also indicated that the increased interest in nuclear energy in the US is positively impacting his industry.

Company history

The German company is based near Cologne and Dusseldorf and was founded in 1959 as a general consulting and electronic research company but began focusing on electronics, enclosures and power supply equipment for particle physics experiments in 1992, when Manfred Plein and Jürgen Baus took over the company.  In 2008, the company merged into the much larger Phoenix Mecano AG. 

US operation

The US operation got started in 1997, and as Folker Hemmann tells it, the owners called him right before a vacation to Egypt and directed him to found the company.  Folker runs the German-American Development Corporation, a service firm that specializes in helping medium-sized German companies establish a US presence.  For a fixed monthly fee (and no long-term contracts), Hemmann takes care of the bookkeeping and other red tape issues related to doing business in the US.  He provides a desk and other support as well from within Springfield’s Small Business Development Center.

Staff

Ruben runs the US Wiener with his wife and new colleague, Scott Puderbauer, formerly of Rittal, another enclosure giant located in nearby Urbana with Springfield roots.   Scott recently joined the team to help sell Hartmann Electronics as well as WP&B and is a result of the 2008 merger. 

>> Company’s global homepage – www.wiener-d.com
>> About Wiener Plein + Baus – http://bit.ly/5MwrJ
>> Company’s US page – www.wiener-us.com

>> Company’s Physics Today profile – http://bit.ly/rAyLu
>> Physicsworld.com profile – http://bit.ly/XOcMX
>> Government contract won (2007) – http://bit.ly/84PmA
>> Government contracts won (2000-2008) – http://bit.ly/QTcmF
>> ACS Industrial services WP&B – http://bit.ly/oWmUc

>> Thomas Net article on Hartmann Electronics – http://bit.ly/M1F4p
>> SNS Article on incubator/SBDC – http://bit.ly/tJWSo
>> Small Business Development Center – www.smbusdev.org
>> German-American Development Corporation – www.gadc.com