Wendell August Forge enlisted SEWN's help in the spring of 2009 with its financial restructuring services. Read SEWN's success story on Wendell August Forge.
By Deborah M. Todd / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The week that Grove City metalcrafter Wendell August Forge celebrated winning the largest orders in its 90-year history was almost the same week it mourned its demise.
In March 2010 -- fresh off of six-figure deals with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Robert Morris University -- the handcrafted metal company's flagship store and workshop burned to the ground. In about an hour, millions of dollars in equipment and materials housed at the Exton location since 1934 were reduced to embers on the collapsed factory's floor. The fire, which started in a ventilation fan being used by workers applying lacquer to products, was ruled accidental.
Three years after what typically is a death blow for small businesses, Wendell August Forge has upped its workforce from a team of 70 to 120, struck distribution deals with 600 stores nationwide and broken ground on a new facility behind Grove City Premium Outlets. The new location, which is scheduled to open this fall, puts the company in the sights of more than 6 million shoppers who hit the outlet mall every year.
Add a comment By Marco Trbovich, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Tricom Associates
President Obama’s Special Assistant and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, Jonathan Greenblatt, joined capital stewards, pension fund managers and other investors at the Heartland Economic Impact Investment Forum: Washington, D.C., the sixth of such forums since 2012. Sponsored by Heartland Capital Strategies (HCS), the forum focused on the need to rebuild the built environment of our cities and to revitalize the nation’s industrial commons.
In addition to providing market-competitive returns and minimizing risk, “Economic Impact Investments” result in community prosperity through the growth of good jobs, innovative enterprises and a more resilient built environment. Heartland fosters a “Community of Practice” for Economic Impact Investments (EII), and this network has invested successfully for decades in Washington, D.C. and around the country. These innovative fund managers and capital stewards came together in 2012 under the banner of Heartland’s Responsible Investment (RI) Forums to re-build cities hit hard by the recession.
The challenge of pursuing a more sustainable built environment in the nation’s capital was the focus of the forum’s opening panel, moderated by Leanne Tobias, President of Malachite LLC.
Add a comment Back in gear
Pequea Machine reshores part production for better quality
March 15, 2013
Twenty-five percent is an unacceptable failure rate for a crucial farm machinery part.
But that's what Lancaster County-based Pequea Machine Inc. faced when it tested gear boxes received from China: 25 percent failed due to substandard metals, owner and President Dennis Skibo said.
"That's not good when you're making a huge pile of gear boxes under warranty," he said. "After years of getting crappy quality, we decided to bring the gear box manufacturing back to the United States."
Pequea Machine manufactures farm equipment in Earl Township. Five years ago, it contracted to have its gear boxes for tedders — machines that fluff hay for drying — made in China to save some production cost, Skibo said. Two years ago, it began bringing the job back to the U.S. after receiving substandard quality from China. Now Pequea makes its gear boxes alongside the rest of the tedder and this month completed its first run, he said.
Pequea is part of a growing "reshoring" trend among manufacturers that have brought parts and products back to the U.S. to control quality, prevent supply disruptions and be closer to clients. Surveys suggest more companies will bring production back to the U.S. in coming years, and reviews of known reshoring suggest it's a significant part of manufacturing's recovery, supporters said.
Add a comment
An Interview with Tom Croft, Executive Director of the Steel Valley Authority; Suzanne Smethers, President & Founder of Inteprod; and Senator Bob Mensch, PA's 24th Senatorial District, which appeared in the November, 2012 "The Mensch Report", on the Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN) Program and the SVA.
Add a comment Responsible Investment in the Real Economy
By Tom Croft, Managing Director of HCS & Executive Director for the SVA, and
Marco Trbovich, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Tricom Associates
The Heartland Network launched a series of regional Responsible Investment Forums in 2012 to spur new investments for addressing capital gaps in the economy. Under Heartland’s banner, four RI Forums were held in Atlanta, LA, Philadelphia and Detroit, cities hard hit by the Great Recession. Led by a core network of innovative investment professionals, the forums were 
robust roundtables that brought together over 130 fund managers and capital stewards, labor and business leaders, and community and green jobs advocates from around the U.S. The forums examined opportunities and challenges posed by investing in real and clean economy sectors, with a hard focus on their promise of creating good jobs.
A consensus emerged from this remarkable tour that Heartland should keep the road show going and build a bold responsible investment network moving forward. In short, the consensus was that RI investing needs to be framed as “rebuilding America,” an approach that involves minimizing risk to investors while maximizing return to beneficiaries and the public – in essence, creating collaborative investment strategies. Next stop for the road show, most likely: Chicago in the Fall of 2012.
Add a comment 
Bucks County Turnaround
Fall 2012
In almost every company, an occasional speed bump on your economic journey can cause a sequence of events that can lead to very difficult times. When you are a small manufacturing company, the ups can happen very quickly, and the downs can come even faster. Regrettably, most small companies don’t have the resources to watch the ball dropping, and don’t real ize they have a pending crisis until it has already hit bottom.
Fortunately, Bucks County has an Economic Development Corporation (BCEDC) with a professional staff watching for those signs of trouble within its member companies. When one of the BCEDC members showed early signs of trouble, they called on one of their partners, the SEWN Program.
SEWN (Strategic Early Warning Network) is a PA state-funded organization of turnaround consultants with the express purpose of saving jobs through restoring struggling manufacturing companies to good health. Read the full article in the Bucks Prospectus
