Ron Earl, marketing director; Todd Hart, executive vice president; Robert Burnetter, chief executive officer; Daniel Campau, president; and Mark Herrema, engineering director.

Flow-Rite Controls Ltd is expanding its Byron Center facility with an engineering centre, high-speed assembly equipment, additional injection moulds and facility upgrades and utilising a State of Michigan grant.

The designer, manufacturer and marketer of fluid control devices for lead-acid batteries, recreational fishing boats and laboratory and medical uses is adding 7,500 sqft. (697 sqm) to its current occupancy of 98,000 sqft. (9,104 sqm).

Participants in the project's 6 August groundbreaking were Ron Earl, marketing director; Todd Hart, executive vice president; Robert Burnetter, chief executive officer; Daniel Campau, president; and Mark Herrema, engineering director.

Campau founded Flow-Rite in 1981.

The strategic fund arm of Michigan's business development program approved the project on 30 July for a performance-based grant. The projected Flow-Rite investment exceeds USD6 million, involves adding 64 jobs within three years and envisions a state grant up to USD224,000. Currently, the vertically integrated company has 109 staff.

"We committed to hiring them over three years, but we expect to have more than half hired in by the end of the year," Earl says.

Burnetter says: "It is a core value we have at Flow-Rite to remain a 'Made in the USA' manufacturer. We are continuously reinvesting in our facility, products and people here in west Michigan." He acknowledged assistance from The Right Place Inc, a Grand Rapids-based regional non-profit economic development organisation, in obtaining the grant.

"Flow-Rite is the definition of what advanced manufacturing looks like today in west Michigan," says Birgit Klohs, president and chief executive officer of The Right Place. "It is imperative that we retain and expand growing companies like Flow-Rite in our region."

Single-point watering systems - including the Millennium SPW and Pro-Fill lines - make up about 90% of Flow-Rite's sales.

Perry Johnson Registrars Inc of Troy, Michigan accredited Flow-Rite Controls under the requirements of the ISO 9001:2008 quality assurance standard.