Midwest PowderTec is Now a Reality

In my first blog post I thought it’d be good to start at the beginning but that could be a rather long endeavor. Therefore I decided to start with my “why”.

I’ve spent time around powder coating since I was a kid in high school restoring old cars. I’ve always appreciated powder coating in that sense because I could drop off my rusty, greasy frames and suspension components and the powder coater would clean them up, powder coat them, and call me for pickup. That would’ve taken me forever to do. It’s dirty, time consuming, and not to mention I don’t have a sandblaster or powder coating setup.

Fast forward to summer of 2018, I’m restoring an old corvette and used two different powder coaters. I had a GREAT experience with one, and a horrible experience with the other. After recently selling a company and leaving it, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next and was self-analyzing myself. Where is my passion? What makes me happy? What gets me out of bed in the morning and what satisfies me at the end of the day? Throughout my life I’ve always been in sales and around great people. After a lot of thought, I realized that it’s not necessarily the product or service that I sell, but how the product or service I provide makes other people’s lives and businesses better.

After working at a Fortune 200 company for over 15 years, then having the opportunity to help turn a struggling startup business into a $4M company, I realize that the root of all my success is based on my passion for helping other people do what they do, better.

Today, Midwest PowderTec, Inc. is a reality. We’re a powder coating company focused on serving metal fabricators, architects, designers, and general contractors in all markets. Our general manager is a close friend and colleague of mine from Gateway and then a regional IT Infrastructure sales and engineering company we were at so you can say we’re cut from the same mold – helping other people’s lives and businesses get better. We choose to focus on a certain market demographic and customer base with the intent of building real relationships, or “partnerships” in business with companies that value the relationship.

I think Omaha and the surrounding area has plenty of business for all of us to be successful in the powder coating industry. We’re one of “the good guys” and are looking forward to developing close ties with companies we can positively impact, and help make their customers happier and more satisfied than ever before.

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Midwest PowderTec Helps America's Wall of Honor

By Jim Laughlin • January 22, 2021

America's Wall of Honor is a remarkable project! This incredible 55’ x 10’ Memorial Wall will contain nine “seals” forged from dozens of layers of Stainless Steel in an effort to honor those whose service and sacrifice has made our country “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” Powder coating America's Wall of Honor is underway and needless to say it is a massive undertaking. We started with the center Presidential Seal section of the Wall. Many special considerations and unique solutions had to be developed and worked through to ensure a flawless finish. This is just the beginning of this part of the project, it is such a major undertaking that there will be many posts about its progress. See more here: A great video of this part of the process America's Wall of Honor Facebook Page More images of this part of the process

The Setup

By James Laughlin • June 2, 2020

I’m a very technical minded person (pre-electrical engineering, data storage, virtual communication) and wanted to be absolutely sure I understood the dynamics of not only the product, but the process as well. Understanding I can’t know everything, I always want to. After a significant amount of time and investment traveling, training, visiting powder coaters as small as a wheels guy in Omaha to a fully automated facility in Denver that receives product from other countries, coats it, repacks and ships to the client. All I can say is “impressive”. I knew there was space and a demand in the upper middle size category so I chose a 25 foot oven knowing the bulk of the coaters here have 15 feet and smaller. Those guys are good at what they do and I’m not focused on their customers. The big guys in town have either 60 foot ovens or automated lines. We’re not that big (yet) and can’t handle anything larger than about 24 feet currently. I’m very comfortable with the space we operate in. Right now in the industry we’re seeing everyone just doing the sandblast, paint and cure process. Over the course of a (2) week long training sessions and an enormous amount of interaction, conversation, and researching best practices, we feel the best and most durable results include not only media blasting, but an iron phosphate/zirconium pretreat applied at 150 degrees, a bake off, then the coating and curing. It’ll take a little longer, it’ll cost a little more, but it’s our name and their product. We’re not going to be all things to all customers, but we will be the best for those who want it. In ending, our cleaning/conversion coat process is handled with a 150 degree Reimers steam unit that has site injection of the chemical making it more effective on the substrate. We’ve invested in the newest top of the line powder coating gun by GEMA named the Optiflex Pro. We have a brand new paint booth that’s well lit with HEPA ventilation. We have a 25 foot high efficiency convection oven that’s digitally controlled ensuring optimum time and temp are applied to avoid errors. We have a QC process every step of the way. I’ve been building this from concept to reality since late 2018. We’ve only been open for 3 months now and I feel very good about our focus, mission, strategy, and future business partners. I want to encourage everyone out there that has wanted to start a business to do it now. As these blogs continue I’ll talk about the learning opportunities I went through to get here. My first recommendation is to clearly identify what makes the product or service you represent the best.