MFG Day is About Education and Experiences

While MFG DAY is an opportunity for people of all ages and from all walks of life to learn something about manufacturing through first-hand personal experience, the real focus is about providing guidance to students that can help them when it comes time to make career decisions. As the new introductory MFG DAY VIDEO says: “why would students choose manufacturing if they’ve never even been exposed to it?”

So, we just got approved for our first PA State funded loan request – $400,000 for some equipment that we needed to handle a big, new medical project. We accomplished this through the PA Industrial Development Authority (PIDA), with the huge help of the Bucks County Economic Development Corp (BCEDC). This may not seem like such a big deal on the surface – it is still a loan, we still have to pay it back…well, as it turns out – for cash flow for a startup company – it is a big deal.

Our cash flow at Meron Medical was impacted very positively in two significant ways. First – if we only used bank funds to finance the $800,000 total project, they would only commit to 80% loan to value – meaning that we would have to come up with 20%, or $160,000. This is a lot of cash for any company, let alone a new venture. By splitting the loan between the bank, and the State of PA – the bank looked at the State money as a very significant “down payment”. This lowered their requirements for the loan to value amount and resulted in us only having to come up with $26,000. The bank financed $372,000 and the State funded $400,000 and we kicked in the $26K. This was huge for us.

NewAge^® Industries’ Employee Ownership, Green Actions and Careful Expansion Help It Succeed

In business since 1954, NewAge Industries is a manufacturer of thermoplastic and thermoset tubing and reinforced hose, and a supplier of fittings and clamps. The company offers an overall product quality rating of 99.8%. It stocks millions of feet of tubing and prides itself on same-day shipment of most orders for its core product lines.

NewAge supplies products to industries such as food and beverage, dairy, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical, chemical, beer and brewing, medical, appliance, laboratory, maintenance, toy, robotics and OEM. The company provides extensive custom extrusion and fabrication capabilities and services customers worldwide.