By : MARA LEE
Source : http://www.courant.com
Category : Small Business Grant
Oxford Performance Materials, which has benefited from Connecticut's support four times since 2001, was celebrated Wednesday by the governor, legislators and Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Catherine Smith as the first recipient of the Small Business Express program.
The state has set aside $100 million to lend and give to companies headquartered in Connecticut with fewer than 50 employees who need to buy equipment or have expansion plans that require more employees than current revenue can support.
The state chose Oxford Performance Materials, a South Windsor medical technology firm, for a $200,000 loan and a $100,000 grant through the DECD program. Last year, OPM borrowed $1.2 million from Connecticut Innovations, which is receiving its own infusion of $125 million from the state for economic development efforts. In 2002, CI invested $700,000 in OPM, providing 40 percent of the company's start-up capital.
CI doubled its investment when OPM was bought by a French company. OPM President Scott DeFelice re-formed the company as an additive technology medical implant manufacturer after that purchase, and moved from Enfield to South Windsor.
DeFelice said the company is focusing on custom-made implants for head and jaw surgeries, which is a much higher margin product than its former line of raw materials for implants. It's not yet turning a profit.
The first time CI sent money to OPM was in 2001, when it was developing membranes for fuel cells.
The company, which spent $900,000 of its own cash on a laser sintering machine to make the implants, has 17 employees, up from 15 in August, and plans to hire six more within the next year.
Smith said there are 200 more applicants in line for the Small Business Express program. The department aims to give each an answer within a month. This loan/grant package was finished in 40 days.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said, "We understand that time is money and get to yes as quickly as we can, sometimes get to no."
One of the recent hires the state money helped fund was Dean Bissonnette, who is going to be a manufacturing technician and inspector once he's trained. Bissonnette had worked for a Scottish company in East Windsor called the Wood Group, which overhauled turbine engines used in Power Plants and once employed about 350. "The company moved (the work) to Texas and Thailand," Bissonnette said. He was laid off several years ago; in 2010, the Wood Group laid off another 90 people, and now has fewer than 50 workers in East Windsor.
This job doesn't pay as well as that one did, but Bissonette, who went a year without even being able to get temporary work in factories or warehouses, said it feels great to be back at work.
Source : http://www.courant.com/business/hc-malloy-small-business-20120118,0,7396462.story
