Apr 27th 2011, 08:22
Sioux Falls-based Raven Industries is aggressively investing in the growth opportunities they’ve cultivated throughout their 55 years by putting up five new buildings this year to expand research and development, increase manufacturing capacity, and position the company for future growth.
Raven is developing a research and development campus on 190 acres of land just north of Sioux Falls, adding to the two buildings for their Applied Technology Division (ATD) currently used for design and testing of its precision agriculture products. In February 2011, Raven finished a 12,000-square-foot building. Ryan Molitor, Marketing Supervisor at Raven Applied Technology said, “Our new facility will help meet the growing needs of our diverse product line by housing agriculture equipment indoors to develop and test our precision ag products year-round.”
Also at the research campus, Raven Aerostar is currently constructing a 50-foot-tall 15,000-square-foot building to meet the needs of their aerostat design, demonstration, and training. Lon Stroschein, Vice President and General Manager of Raven Aerostar said, “Raven Aerostar is building this facility to provide 24/7 customer support, complete urgent orders, and test aerostats. We are also using the facility as an R&D center that will best enable us to continue to develop, test and manufacture the world’s most advanced, affordable light-weight fabrics for Commands, Controls, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR). The training and development carried out at our facility will provide life-saving situational-awareness and intelligence for our troops wherever they are deployed. Raven Aerostar’s aerostat systems have become the single largest enemy of the insurgents in Afghanistan. Every day and night, our systems are catching insurgents in the act of planting IEDs. Our aerostats help identify, detect and track the insurgents visually. This allows the United States Military to engage appropriately to best ensure that the situation has been mitigated and that the insurgent won’t again be a concern for the United States Military.” Completion of this building is scheduled for June 2011. Later in 2011, there will be another 6,500 square foot building going up at this site for classroom/training purposes.
Work is also starting on an 80,000-square-foot state-of-the-art manufacturing building for the production of precision agriculture products near the airport and next to the six existing buildings used for Raven Engineered Films Division and Raven Aerostar. Matt Burkhart, Vice President and General Manager of Raven Applied Technology comments, “Our Applied Technology Division has seen strong growth over the last decade and outgrew our current downtown location. The markets we serve have solid fundamentals and a favorable outlook which makes moving our production and manufacturing to a larger, single-story building a necessary element in our overall growth and strategic plan.” The fifth and final new building this year is 40,000-square-feet and will go up simultaneously with the precision agriculture building at Industrial Park for use as Engineered Films Division manufacturing space.
Dan Rykhus, President and CEO of Raven Industries reflects, “We are fortunate to own a historic building where our corporate headquarters are located in downtown Sioux Falls on the Big Sioux River. Over the next several years this building will be transformed to support our rapidly growing needs for various professional staff positions in accounting, marketing, human resources, product development, service, and sales.
About Raven Industries, Inc.
Since 1956, Raven Industries has designed and manufactured high-quality, high-value technical products. Raven is publicly traded on NASDAQ (RAVN) and has earned an international reputation for innovation, product quality, high performance and unmatched service. With strengths in engineering, manufacturing, and technological innovation, Raven serves the precision agriculture, high performance specialty films, aerospace, and electronic manufacturing services markets. Visit www.RavenInd.com for more information.