Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions owner and president, Jason Wobbema, poses with his company crew in Hibbing.
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions owner and president, Jason Wobbema, poses with his company crew in Hibbing. Expanded Steel Machine
Jason Wobbema started a new business at a time when many businesses were simply struggling to stay alive.
“Everything I had done was outside of the Iron Range,” said Wobbema, owner and president of Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions in Hibbing. “COVID hit, and it was the first time in 25 years that I stopped traveling, so I decided to start my own manufacturing company.”
Wobbema grew up in Eveleth and had worked in the robotics industry for years. But in January 2021, he launched Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions.
About three-and-a-half years later, the home-grown company has prospered to the point where it needs more manufacturing space.
Next year, the company that produces safety steel wire mesh guarding for the automation industry will moves into a new building designed to accommodate its growth.
Hibbing Economic Development Authority (HEDA) is backing construction of a $9 million, 34,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on a city-owned lot in Hibbing. HEDA will lease it to Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions.
“We are really hoping for March 2025,” Wobbema said of the move. “But realistically, it will probably be operational in the summer of 2025.”
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions is a story of a native Iron Ranger who left, then returned to take a chance on launching a start-up business.
“The day after I graduated, I moved away and went to two years of tech school,” said Wobbema, a 1996 Eveleth-Gilbert High School graduate. “I lived multiple different places in the country, crafting my skills in robotics. I would build and design equipment for the Marvin family or John Menards or Hunter Douglas, kind of all over the place. I did that for 25 years of my career.”
Wobbema also worked for a company in South Dakota and built automation equipment for European firms.
But Wobbema’s wife was from Mountain Iron and wanted to return to the Iron Range with their adopted daughter.
That led him back to the Iron Range and then to Hibbing.
“We engaged a lot of towns up here,” said Wobbema. “Hibbing was the most receptive and interested in starting a manufacturing company.”
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions manufactures a variety of steel machine guarding products including panels, doors, posts and safety electronics.
Among uses for the products are safeguarding robotics, Wobbema said.
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions got its start in a Hibbing manufacturing facility where Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing had operated.
“To save money and just get started as a company, we leased half of the building,” said Wobbema. “We outgrew it a year-and-a-half ago.”
With the pandemic impacting the supply chain, the company got off to a rocky start.
“We had two major challenges,” recalled Wobbema. “We couldn’t get parts for our equipment and our customers weren’t allowing any vendors into their facilities.”
However, Wobbema and the business, with help from others, have forged ahead.
From zero sales in 2021, the company is projecting $2 million in sales in 2024.
And Wobbema sees continued growth.
“Our projection right now is we’re probably going to double in size for five years straight,” said Wobbema. “We’ll go from two to four to eight to maybe 12 or maybe 16 (million in sales). It’s due to demand and because of who we are as a company. We customize our doors, fence panels or posts for the customers, and our customers can’t find labor to assemble this stuff for them, so we do it for them. We are making it easy for our customers to deploy our product, and that’s a big advantage in making them here.”
The Duluth-based Entrepreneur Fund, which provided lending and advice services to Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions, is one of many supporters.
In the 1980s, as the Iron Range suffered a major economic downturn due to a domestic steel industry slump, the Entrepreneur Fund was created out of a need to diversify industry on the Iron Range.
“I think Jason and his company really represent a lot of the economic opportunity we can do in this region,” said Shawn Wellnitz, Entrepreneur Fund president and chief executive officer. “Jason and his team have a clear vision, and they’re a good example of how many entrepreneur groups rally around an entrepreneur. Between the bank support and the state support, to take the business to scale in a few years is amazing.”
European and Asian manufacturers continue to play a major role in the machine guarding market, said Wobbema.
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions is one of only a few in the United States that manufacturers machine guarding products, he said.
But Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions has created its own niche.
“What makes us unique is we actually build all of our own automation in-house. Most of our competition, they have to buy equipment to do it, where we build it ourselves. I used to purchase a lot of it when I was building robotics systems, and I know what our customers are looking for and asking for, and we have a very unique skill set to deliver that.”
Located literally blocks from Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.’s Hibbing Taconite Co. mine, Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions has another big edge: It’s made in America.
“All of the steel we use is made in the U.S.,” said Wobbema. “It’s flat coils from Cliffs that are rolled into a tube steel in Kansas City. We literally take the ore out of our backyard and get it processed somewhere in Ohio, then to Kansas and then back to us. It’s important for us to use domestic product.”
The Eveleth-based Minnesota Department of Iron Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRR) is backing construction of the new manufacturing building with a $4.5 million, 20-year, zero interest loan with repayment from the “net rents” on the building.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), from its 21st Century Fund, is also providing a $4.5 million, 20-year, zero interest loan with repayment from the “net rents” on the building.
This spring, IRRR, DEED and Park State Bank also backed the company with a $1.25 million loan to help it build more equipment and increase automation, Wobbema said.
The expansion will create 12 new jobs by 2025 at $20 to $31 per hour, according to the IRRR.
“Hibbing has been great,” Wobbema said. “The HEDA folks have been super supportive of us and both Rick (former Hibbing Mayor Rick Cannata) and Pete (current Mayor Pete Hyduke) are fighting for this kind of industry to come into Hibbing. And the same for IRRRB.”
Hyduke credits Betsy Olivanti, HEDA Community Development director and the HEDA team, for moving the project forward.
“Betsy is the one who carried it for the city,” Hyduke said. “It was a team effort, and it’s exciting to see that model pay off. Jason has a proven product, competes worldwide and to help him make the next step with a 34,000-square-foot building is exciting. It’s just a win-win for Hibbing and the region.”
Automation is key for the company to compete with European manufacturers, said Wobbema.
“For us to compete globally, we have to automate. We can’t compete with just straight labor.”
Advanced Machine Guarding Solutions’ ability to meet customer needs gives it an edge, Wobbema reiterated. “The disadvantage of importing a product is they can’t customize it. We customize our panels for our customers. We’re making it easy for our customers to deploy our product, and that’s the advantage we have in making it here.”
After starting from scratch with just himself and one other employee during a difficult time, Wobbema envisions a bright future.
“We feel like when this company has matured, we are going to have 30 to 40 really good, high paying jobs,” he said.
Even after its short existence, the company has already received buy-out offers from larger manufacturers, but Wobbema wants to keep the business on the Iron Range.
“We are doing everything possible to keep this owned on the Range,” said Wobbema. “My goal is for this to become an ESOP (employee-owned) so when I’m gone these guys can determine the future. We have a good following of support. This can benefit the community and all the businesses in the community. We’ve had a lot of investors who want to buy us out, but that’s not what we want to do. We want to keep it locally owned.”
Wellnitz of the Entrepreneur Fund said he, too, sees this company continuing to grow.
“He’s got all the right pieces,” Wellnitz said. “Now, it’s just building his team.”
The downtown area has reopened after three years of street construction.
Some clouds in the morning will give way to mainly sunny skies for the afternoon. High 67F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph..
A mostly clear sky. Low 42F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
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