MAMTC targeting small-town businesses

BOULDER — Manufacturers in rural areas have been targeted for assistance by a manufacturing center at the University of Colorado at Boulder previously run by Colorado State University.Since CU-Boulder took over the Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Program in August, the group has focused on building relationships with small rural manufacturers in places such as Durango and Montrose, and even in cities such as Greeley, said Edvard Hag, head of the Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center and now regional director for MAMTC in Colorado.
The program provides manufacturers with advice on business and technical operations. One of its goals is to help firms compete more successfully against foreign businesses.
"We want to save jobs and provide better-paying jobs in Colorado manufacturing," Hag said. "We are here to save U.S. manufacturing jobs by making firms more competitive."
Following a dispute between CSU and MAMTC over how the program was run, CU stepped in with a proposal to serve as the program˜s Colorado affiliate under a one-year trial extension.
The program˜s budget this year is $689,300, administered through the CU Business Advancement Center and its department, the Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center. Of that amount, $350,000 came from MAMTC, the balance from National Institute of Standards and Technology funds. CU and several community colleges are providing free office space and other in-kind services for the program, Hag said.
"It˜s a very minimal budget to keep the doors open," Hag said.
When the fiscal year ends June 30, Hag said the group will seek $750,000 in state funds to operate in the coming year. The program will budget for about $2 million next year, with the balance coming in federal funds from NIST and other resources, he said.
MAMTC is one of 70 centers sponsored nationwide by NIST˜s Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It was created to improve small and mid-sized manufacturers˜ competitiveness. The program helps established manufacturers in an array of industries, from food processing to electronics.
Projects include new-product design, production efficiency improvements, business and management systems, market development and quality control.
Since its inception in 1991, the program has helped more than 750 Colorado manufacturers. Companies have reported almost $12 million in increased sales and more than $3.5 million in decreased costs as a result of the organization˜s assistance.
CSU had charged that Colorado funds were being controlled out of MAMTC˜s headquarters in Overland Park, Kan. MAMTC officials, however, have denied that any Colorado funds ever left the state in support of MAMTC.
MAMTC is a four-state umbrella organization that operates programs in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri.
"We pool resources for things like marketing brochures," Hag said. "It˜s not true that state funds went to Kansas."
Hag declined to comment on the dispute between MAMTC and CSU, except than to say that it consisted of personal grievances by a CSU employee.
"CSU did a good job, but the program was underdeveloped. The existing program was meager," he said.
Now with a fresh start, the program is focusing more on rural parts of Colorado, he said. It has six field engineers located in Fort Collins, Golden, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and two in Grand Junction.
"They are hands-on assistance for manufacturers, and they pull in other resources that can help manufacturing firms," Hag said. "Our approach is to make manufacturers aware of all the resources available to them — university labs, colleges, customized training or private consultants."
CSU served as Colorado affiliate for MAMTC for three years. During that time, the university paid $2.9 million for MAMTC˜s operations, both in cash and in-kind contributions, said Wade Troxell, former executive director of the program at CSU.
CSU˜s affiliation was allowed to lapse at the end of the third one-year contract. In its last year operation at CSU, the program had a budget of $1.4 million, almost $1 million of which was provided by the federal government and the rest by CSU, not counting in-kind contributions, Troxell said.
A main dispute between CSU and MAMTC was that state funds went to MAMTC˜s headquarters in Kansas, leaving Colorado with little oversight as to how they were spent, he said.
MAMTC officials denied, however, that any CSU funds ever went to Kansas. They said the organization operates using a percentage of federal funds, not funds paid by CSU.
Even though CU is administering the program from Boulder, it is designed to benefit the entire state, Hag said.
"This is a great deal, and we do not want to lose it," he said.