The growth of medical device manufacturing could have a
tremendous impact on West Michigan. I was treated to a first-hand look at the
potential offered by that industry during a meeting August 3, 2012 with Keystone Solutions Group
Principal Jim Medsker, Keystone Director of Sales and Business Development
Robert Nesky and Tiger Lab’s Alison Keutgen.
Keystone, based in Kalamazoo, and Zeeland-based Tiger Lab
have a long history of working together in strategic partnerships. The latest
effort has resulted in the creation of an oxygen flow diverter, an idea that
came to Keystone from the mind of a Zeeland Hospital nurse.
What a team! This is such a great story for a variety of
reasons. We have different companies in West Michigan partnering in a very
strategic way to innovate, create and market together. The idea came to them
from someone outside both companies, and there is one more element to this
partnership, the involvement of Spectrum Health.
More on this story will be posted in the days ahead as we
explore an industry that has both a strong history and incredible potential for
West Michigan, medical device manufacturing.
The Keystone-Tiger Lab story will be explored in greater
detail in Manufacturing Renaissance,
which will be published in early September.
It will not be easy. “It will take time. It
will take effort. It will take money,” Beery said as he pointed out his office
window overlooking Medical Mile. “But we have demonstrated before that we are
willing to do that and we know how to do that.”
He sees the public-private sector partnership
model that rebuilt Grand Rapids 20 years ago –I have said it before and I will
say it again, this is not the city I moved into in 1990—as being critical to
moving the region into the Top Five for medical device manufacturing. “It is
night and day in Grand Rapids,” Beery said, “because some folks cared about it
and invested their time, energy and money in it. I’m not so sure we can’t pull
it off.”
Venture capital and angel investment money
will be important and he said there is never enough of that to go around,
although Beery added that he sees the situation improving.
He also sees great potential for the Grand
Rapids community if the area can become a Top Five medical device maker because
it is manufacturing. Nothing feeds the family like manufacturing. Factories are
capital intensive, land intensive –that means tax revenue—and jobs that are
high-skilled, high-wage positions.
Beery said medical device jobs have an
incredible multiplier impact. They create more than 3.5 jobs for every medical
device manufacturing position. The initial job pumps money into the economy,
big time, with the average annual salary 22-percent higher than the typical job
in Michigan.
However, as much as Medical Mile is about
organic growth, creating, developing and monetizing home-cooking, Beery doesn’t
think that will be enough. He believes we are going to have to go out and
convince one of the big players to move to our town, planting their flag here.
“That is the kind of velocity we are going to need to go there (to the Top
Five) in a reasonable amount of time.”
The complete interview with Don Beery, along with more on what is happening on Medical Mile and how that cluster of prosperity has transformed Grand Rapids is available in Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community available now through www.rodkackley.com
medical device job
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