Superintendent

Superintendent

Friday, August 22, 2014

And Here We Go. . .

Four days of school just ended as the last bell of the day sounded a few minutes ago. Evidence so far points to a good year ahead--a building full of students, staff reporting to work and full of new ideas, and equipment maintained (and the AC works too!).

Adult Director Pete Prichard and I represented Vantage at the monthly economic development advisory group meeting. Dave Krendl, Cool Machines, Inc. gave the program today, followed by a tour of his business, which designs and assembles various "cool machines" which are shipped all over the nation and to other countries. No fabrication is currently done onsite, just design and assembly. Among his employees are at least two former Vantage students, one who travels frequently to troubleshoot equipment sold, and who was recently in Hawaii, to troubleshoot for a client of Cool Machines. What an awesome opportunity for our graduates.

 Mr. Krendl's business has many facets, but one which brings some notoriety to Van Wert, Ohio is the equipment they design and assemble for Snow Business, based in the UK. Snow Business supplies "snow" (paper shavings) for all the James Bond movies, Band of Brothers, and many other movie and special events requiring snow effects. Cool Machines' equipment was also used to create the massive dust storm in a recent Tom Cruise movie for a desert scene. The desert sandstorm was really fibrous shavings, or cardboard particles, being blown onto the movie set.

Cool Machines, Inc. is located in the former business incubator site, at 740 Fox Road. Mr. Krendl sums up his business by stating, "We help other businesses by designing the processes they need to accomplish their goals". If a client knows what their end goal is, Cool Machines can make it happen--asphalt application and earth bricks are also emerging processes. Cool Machines is something to see, right here in Van Wert!