Read more: Local, Business, Economy, Innoventor, Barry Illinois, It's Your Business
BARRY, Illinois-13 years ago Barry native Kent Schien started a company in the basement of his home.
13 years later that company has a design and testing division in St. Louis, it employs 80 full time employees and has 20 million dollars in sales annually.
In this It's Your Business report ,we'll find out why Schien and another Barry native decided to bring part of the business back home to Tri-States.
Barry Illinois' newest business is named "Innoventor" and it's located at 693 Bainbridge Street.
The company specializes in making state of the art mechanical equipment for all sorts of tasks.
One example is a machine called the Therastride.
It's used to help people regain their mobility after accidents or injuries.
The company's headquarters is located in St. Louis but about a month ago it opened a manufacturing center in Barry.
And there's a special reason for that.
Both the owner Kent Schien and the operations manager Brian Nation are Barry natives.
Nations says,"We just always felt like the skill sets were here to do manufacturing. You can do anything lower cost here than you can in St. Louis. Just felt like the area needed the economic impact and skills are here."
The company is also involved in aero-space and defense, renewable power and the food and beverage industries.
One thing is for sure Innoventor is not afraid of a challenge.
Nation says, " We go after customers with difficult problems. Some customers will come to us with problems that aren't real technologically challenging ..we'll refer them to someone else. We want the hard work. We want the difficult work. So we're on the forefront of technology."
Right now the company has 8 employees but there are plans to hire up to 100 in the very near future.
KHQA's Stephen Johnson asked Brian Nation what's been the most rewarding part for you of seeing a business like this come into the community?"
Brian said,"Just the opportunity to create jobs in the community that raised me. To bring something back has been real rewarding."
As the business continues to grow...the company has plans to expand to an even bigger location in Barry.
