Small Manufacturer Minnesota Wire & Cable Co. Expands Into Military Work
As Printed in The Business Journal, April 18, 2003, Vol. 20, No. 4
The Business Journal, Vol. 20, No. 46, By Scott D. Smith --

The single biggest contract last year for Minnesota Wire & Cable Co. in St. Paul was done for patriotism, not profits, said Paul Wagner, president and CEO of the family-owned firm.
Minnesota Wire, a job shop that specializes in making high-tech wires for medical equipment and body sensors, landed its first major military work last year.

The sub-contract, which was to manufacture durable wires to be used on the U.S. Army's Land Warrior wearable computer systems, accounted for about 13 percent of Minnesota's Wire's $14 million in sales last year.

The job wasn't a money maker, partly because of the huge amount of effort and expense that went into designing the product, intended to be used under the harsh conditions that foot soldiers encounter.

The Land Warrior system combines an assortment of commercial off-the-shelf technologies with some newly developed components that link the soldier to the modern high-tech battlefield. It combines computers, lasers, location devices and radios.

Minnesota Wire's products are in the testing fields and probably weren't used Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wagner said.

That doesn't diminish his pride in helping out what he calls "the best army in the free world." Less than a month after Sept. 11, Minnesota Wire got a chance to get involved in the project through another Army sub-contractor.

When Minnesota Wire first landed the work designing part of the wiring system, Wagner said he thought, "Military; that's interesting, different, etc."

His attitude changed after a visit to the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where an officer leaned in nine inches from his face and told him that the system was the Army's No. 1 priority."

Wagner said his four years of junior ROTC at Cretin-Derham High School in St. Paul taught him to take the challenge head on.

He said his thought became, "We gotta fix this thing, it's our duty and obligation."
Minnesota Wire dedicated four of its 175 employees to the program full time. Once things really started going, they worked 24-hour days, sometimes putting in 60- or 70-hour weeks and skipping vacations "because it was the thing to do," Wagner said.

Wagner said he hopes that the Land Warrior work will turn out to be a springboard to more military contracts, either for the Army or other branches of the military. It also could be used in wearable computers for fire, emergency and law enforcement personnel.

It's uncharacteristic for small manufacturers in the state to venture into military work today, said Art Sneen, president of Manufacturers Alliance, a trade group based in Maple Grove.
"It's usually so shrouded in red tape that it's not something companies can take on lightly," he said. "They have to have a structure to support it."

Just a few years ago, when U.S. defense spending levels dropped, the state Minnesota had programs to help small manufacturers move out of military contracts and into other work, he said. That might change as defense spending increases again.

Minnesota Wire seems to have used patriotism to achieve a high level of performance, Sneen said. "If only all manufacturers could find similar reasons and motivations to perform like that," he said, "that would be a business coup."
sblack@bizjournals.com, 612-288-2103

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