June 2008 |
by
Denise Logeland
Dennis Schultz, Suzlon Rotor Corporation's first president and COO, stepped into the gap between the company's labor needs and what Pipestone could provide, and started an employee-busing program to fill it. Until more housing is built in town, the company continues to run buses at a cost of about $45,000 a month.
Photo by Anthony Brett Schreck
Plenty of rural communities would like to face the challenges that Pipestone does—they’re good problems to have, so to speak. (Whether plenty of employers would like to be in Suzlon Rotor’s shoes is another question, but plenty are, to varying degrees, given a growing shortage of manufacturing workers overall.)
The fact is that Suzlon’s decision to come to Pipestone was counted as a big win—for the city, for the JOBZ program, and for the state. (“The governor really, really pushed it,” Tinklenberg says. “I mean, he really wanted this, especially this close to Iowa and South Dakota.”) Now that it’s happened, everyone involved is finding that there’s much more work to do to make the arrangement succeed. Jones says, “We’re working through the growing pains.”
Pipestone, Minnesota
Population: 4,280
Location: 195 miles southwest of the Twin Cities
History: Founded 1876. Named for red pipestone still quarried locally by Native Americans and used for ceremonial pipes. An important rail hub for grain shippers in the late 19th and early 20th century, Pipestone has a downtown that includes grand facades on the Calumet Hotel, Masonic Lodge, and other century-old structures made of pink Sioux Quartzite.
Major Employers: Suzlon Rotor Corporation (500 employees), Pipestone Veterinary Clinic/Pipestone System hog producers co-op (500), Pipestone County Medical Center (250), U.S. Marine (295), Ellison Meat Company (210).
Infrastructure: New airport terminal completed this spring; no commercial air service. New high school built in 2003. Pipestone County Medical Center was expanded and improved the same year. Minnesota West Community and Technical College has a Pipestone campus. The city is at the junction of state highways 23, 30, and 75, with interstates 90 and 29 just 25 miles away.
Looking to the Future: Pipestone has 40 acres remaining of its designated JOBZ (Job Opportunity Building Zone) land. Its economic development authority is working to attract more employers, with an emphasis on businesses that can use the technical college as a training partner and keep graduates in the area. It’s received $744,500 in grant money to begin remedying a shortage of housing.
Suzlon Energy Limited
Employees: 13,000 globally
Founded: 1995 by Tulsi Tanti to provide power to India’s industrial consumers (including his own textile business), who faced an erratic supply.
Headquarters: Corporate offices, Amsterdam; operations base in Pune, India
Operations: Manufacturing of wind turbine components in India (10 plants), China (1), Belgium (1), United States (1).
Stock: Trades on the Bombay Stock Exchange (SUZL.BO) and National Stock Exchange of India (SUZL:NS).
Sales: $1.8 billion annually; 10 percent global market share, 9 percent U.S.
Looking to the Future: Suzlon is building a new 36-line production plant in India that comes on line this year. (By comparison, its Minnesota plant has three production lines.) It plans to double its production capacity from 2007 to 2010. Future sales could be influenced by a recall earlier this year of 1,251 rotor blades, following complaints from major customer GE Wind that rotor blades were cracking. (None of the recalled blades was made in Pipestone.) —D. L. |
