New business gets $90,000 boost

Mark Faragher is calling it a dream pulled into reality.
The Fort Frances entrepreneur received $90,000 from the Transitional Jobs Fund during a grand-opening ceremony here yesterday to help his new company–Fibre Works Canada–get off the ground.
Fibre Works is the sole producer for “Top-Up” products, a company based in Detroit, Mich. which markets self-lifting fibreglass tops and camping units for pick-up trucks.
Faragher said the local plant is aiming to produce about 200 units this year but added the U.S. company wants to know if and when he’ll be able to step up production to 2,000 units.
“March will be the start-up,” Faragher noted, adding he’s waiting for the rest of the molds for the pick-up tops to come in.
“It will put six people working,” he said. “After that, we’re up to 10 by mid-May.”
Local MP Robert Nault was on hand to present the funding for the new company. He stressed there’s a big potential for export since Fort Frances is located at the centre of the continent, and encouraged Faragher’s entrepreneurial spirit.
“One of the things that excited me the first time I came to the shop was the enthusiasm of the owner,” Nault said. “As MP, I’m interested in the employment [Faragher] will create.
“I’m going to stand here today and predict these guys will be very successful,” he added.
Rob Kilgour, Fibre Works office and promotions manager, said it’s taken a lot of work, noting he and Faragher have been pushing for the last year just to get this point.
And it hasn’t all been easy, Faragher said, noting he was “burnt” last spring from spending the last eight years coming up with different manufactured products with fibreglass out of his Nova Body Works shop here.
He said it was the effort of several members of the local business community that held him up then and introduced him and his business idea to Nault.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“It’s really a nice kind of thing to have happen,” he said. “What pulled my dream into reality was teamwork. The victory really isn’t for me. It’s for everyone involved.”