Two new businesses join WMU BTR Park

Kathy Jennings | Thursday, May 14, 2015

WMU Business Technology Park

The two latest companies to move into the Western Michigan University Business Technology and Research Park are a global business with headquarters in Italy and a two-employee firm based in Kalamazoo that offers businesses advice on industrial engineering.

FAiST Light Metals is establishing its North American presence by opening its sales and engineering office in the Weidenhammer Building of the BTR Park. FAiST is leasing 1,000 square feet of space in the building, with an option on additional space for the company as it grows.

The company, which opened its Kalamazoo office May 1, specializes in high quality aluminum die casting, precision machining and surface plating of components and assemblies for the telecom, automotive, electronics and industrial markets. Major customers include Ericsson, Eaton, Borg Warner and Brose.

Jeff McCain, business development manager for FAiST Light Metals North America says the company's vision is to have a staff of five to six professionals, initially, "and in three or four years, we will have a strong core group focused both on sales and engineering."

FAiST has already been recruiting locally, interviewing engineering candidates in April and meeting with WMU engineering faculty as well as students from a number of disciplines.

McCain says the company works with U.S. companies to bring client engineering teams into the development and design process for products FAiST will ultimately produce.

Applied IE

Applied IE is a three-year-old company founded and led by Managing Director Eric M. Gatmaitan, a former WMU faculty member. The company has moved into a suite in the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center, a business incubator for life science startups.

"We're happy to be in the Innovation Center, because it gives us a chance to both network and help startups launch new products and move quickly into the production of their innovations," says Gatmaitan.

Applied IE was launched in 2012 by bringing together two earlier firms. Its clients have included Dell Computers, La-Z-Boy, Stryker and Pfizer. About 60 percent of its business is in the health care industry.

The company helps organizations use industrial engineering technology to optimize their business operations, supply chain management and to apply technology to industry needs and innovations. Applied IE also designs industrial engineering training programs for companies and for community colleges.

"We are lucky that the stars aligned and we could be accommodated," Gatmaitan says. "The ability to network and the building's information technology security were critically important to us, and when the right office space became available, we moved quickly."

Source: Cheryl Roland, Western Michigan University