Two Thunder Bay businesses are now able to expand their operations and reach new clients thanks to more than $500,000 in funding from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor).
Venshore Mechanical received a portion of $368,201 to expand and upgrade their facility and purchase leading-edge equipment, including a metalworking brake and shear, and a plasma table. The expansion will improve capabilities for the facility to produce precision-fabricated tanks, pressure vessels, and other products that are certified by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers boiler and vessel pressure code.
BioNorth Solutions received $145,500 to expand and upgrade their facility and also purchase laboratory equipment, including a large-scale centrifuge and bioreactors.
The funding will help the company develop environmental solutions including bio-products to encourage plant growth globally.
It will also help to foster the bio-remediation of contaminated properties found in Northern Ontario, Canada, and globally.
Marcus Powlowski, Member of Parliament for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, announced the funding at Venshore Mechanical on Friday and said this is what the government should be doing to help stimulate the economy.
The funding comes in the form of a loan, which must be paid back.
“For those who think the Liberals spend like drunken sailors, it’s not true,” Powlowski said.
“They do have to pay the money back, but it’s interest-free for 10 years. That gives these companies the ability to expand and increase their profits. After 10 years, presumably, they will have made far more than the $500,000 that was initially invested, and pay it back to the government. Fednor then loans it to some other new entrepreneurs to help them get going or to start a new business.”
John Jurcik, president of Venshore Mechanical, said the funds will help his staff of 18 people build and expand their fabrication services to include plate rolling and forming as well as pressure vessel manufacturing as they continue to service clients across Canada.
“It’s another avenue that we hadn’t been able to explore and it allows us to enhance and offer more opportunities for metal trades in Thunder Bay,” Jurcik said. “It will also keep the ebb and flow smoothly where we would go from one project to the next.”
He added that they primarily do on-site industrial contracting and the fabrication shop is one of the tools used for those projects. In the past, they have had to look at other options to get some of the parts manufactured that they critically need but now the expansion and new equipment means they can manufacture these parts in the Montreal Street shop.
The shop fabricates about 85 per cent of its products for clients outside of Thunder Bay across Northwestern Ontario.
Amber Kivisto, president of BioNorth Solutions, is about to celebrate 10 years in business with her company co-founder Miranda Lock and called the funding “tremendous.”
“This will make our job so much easier with having our previous spaces better amalgamated and closer together,” Kivisto said. “It allows us better quality control and the ability to produce more. We were really maxed out in our previous lab and now we can expand by 20 times further and also launch our plant growth promotion product.
Kivisto said this also means they will hire more staff, increasing their numbers from seven to 12 by the end of the year.
“We have a lot more regulations coming in as far as decreased fertilizer use or excess soils that are contaminated and they have to be treated properly and not just deposited in landfills anymore,” she said. “We’re helping the earth in the sand and the water,” she said, adding although they do some work with mining and forestry companies, the bulk of it is in environmental engineering.
“We’re starting to look at our first project overseas, which is really exciting for our employees.”
