Business380: Wind industry offers opportunity for Iowa businesses

When you think of the large wind turbines that dot Iowa's landscape, a Cedar Rapids business that sells uniforms probably doesn't come to mind.

Kieck's Career Apparel, 2323 Mount Vernon Rd. SE, provides uniforms for wind farm operators. Because of weather conditions and industrial hazards associated with constructing and servicing wind farms, uniforms need to be flame resistant.

Kieck's President Nina Brundell, who bought the 58-year-old retailer in July, said the company has experienced significant demand from the wind energy sector.

“We supply uniforms to wind power companies in California and Texas,” Brundell said.

The company benefitted when a man who formerly purchased from Kieck's while at Clipper Windpower moved to jobs in Texas, first in Sweetwater and then in Abilene, but continued his purchasing relationship with Kieck's, she said.

While Kieck's may seem like an unusual supplier to Iowa's wind energy industry, a list of 80 firms providing products or services identified in a recent analysis by the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center has some equally surprising entries.

The law firm of Shuttleworth & Ingersoll in Cedar Rapids provides legal services to companies operating in the wind industry. Keystone Electrical Manufacturing in Des Moines, a 46-year-old manufacturer of control and relay panels and turnkey control centers, gets about 20 percent of its business from the wind energy sector.

Mid-Iowa Tools, 3350 Square D Dr. SW in Cedar Rapids, helps customers reduce inefficiencies and redundancies in their supply chains and provide technical service and application support to manufacturers in the upper Midwest. The company, formed in 1974, long before the wind energy industry began growing in Iowa, provides assembly tools, cutting and abrasive tooling, gauges and calibrations to original equipment, manufacturers and wind farm operators.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center report identified more than 30 Iowa companies that also could supply the wind energy industry when demand increases.

Joseph Baker, chief executive officer of Acciona Windpower in West Branch, said his company is committed to purchasing a significant percentage of the components for its wind turbines from North American sources.

“We want to source every single component, assembly and subassembly of our 1.5-megawatt wind turbines from the United States,” Baker said. “It has two advantages - service to us as a customer and our customers over a period of time, and it eliminates currency risk as a factor I have to worry about. We've already accomplished sourcing about 85 percent of the components from the United States and Canada and will continue to work on that.

“We also plan to have our 3-megawatt machine in the ground and certified by the end of the year for sale in the United States and Canada. It has roughly the same design as the 1.5-megawatt machine and we're using many of the same components.”