Nov 21 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Avrum D. Lank Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A mammoth building that once produced deadly machines of war is now being used to make peaceful machines of conservation.

Doors that sent submarines off to sink the ships of America's enemies now admit sheets of steel to be fabricated into towers to hold the electric windmills dotting America's countryside.

The activity is part of Tower Tech Holdings Inc., a young Wisconsin company poised to cash in on the green energy boom. The increasing price of oil and concern over global warming provided the initial impetus for the wind power boom, and tax credits have provided additional fuel.

To the approximately 20,000 turbines in use in the U.S. at the start of the year, 2,500 more are being added in 2007, and at least that many again next year, according to estimates from the American Wind Energy Association in Washington. The turbines are poised on towers such as those being made in Manitowoc.

Wisconsin is well positioned to profit by all the activity, said Jerry Murphy, executive director of The New North, the regional development agency for northeastern Wisconsin based in De Pere.

His area, which stretches north from Manitowoc, has a long history of producing large, sophisticated machinery, Murphy said, and developing a cluster around wind power is a natural adaptation.

Tower Tech is at the center of that effort.

The company's site, on a Manitowoc River peninsula, not only was used to make World War II subs, but also once housed the headquarters and some operations of the Manitowoc Co.

Tower Tech was started in 2003 by Ray Brickner and some partners who had acquired the real estate.

Brickner, 50, is a native of Sheboygan who had owned RBA Inc. since 1985. RBA, which also is located on the peninsula and is now a part of Tower Tech, makes large metal parts for energy-related customers such as Bucyrus International Inc., a mining equipment company in South Milwaukee.

Getting Tower Tech going was "a lot of strain on the pocketbook," Brickner, Tower Tech's president, admitted one day last week , sitting in his office just off the factory floor. Finding a deep pocketed investor and/or tapping the public markets seemed the only sensible course. Eventually, Tower Tech did both.

Last year, it merged with Blackfoot Enterprises Inc. of Las Vegas, a company that had been created to market cigar store Indians and reproductions of totem poles. Those ventures failed, leaving Blackfoot with no real assets except stock that could trade on the public markets. By merging with it, Tower Tech became a public company without the hassle of doing an initial public offering. The shares now trade over the counter, and they have done well.

At the time Blackfoot became Tower Tech, its stock traded at $3 a share. Tower Tech lost money for several months thereafter and the stock fell to $1.20 by August 2006. However, the company has since become profitable, and its stock price has followed. For the first nine months of 2007, sales were almost $8 million, and profit $1.3 million. On Wednesday, Tower Tech stock closed at $10.20.

Employment in the old sub factory has grown, too. A year ago, it employed 70. Now, about twice as many people work in the complex.

Capital from Connecticut

One reason for the turnaround has been an infusion of capital from Tontine Capital Partners, a Connecticut hedge fund, which has been purchasing Tower Tech shares and debt.

Access to the capital has allowed Tower Tech to buy RBA and, in August, Brad Foote Gear Works Inc. of Cicero, Ill., which makes components for wind turbines.

Tower Tech also used the capital to buy much of the equipment that fills the old submarine factory.

The equipment shapes and rolls plate steel into rings taller than a person and then welds them together. The rings are painted and their interiors fitted to customer specifications with platforms, lights and ladders to allow for maintenance once they are installed. Partially completed sections litter the courtyard outside the factory, with workers scurrying around putting in the accessories. Eventually, the sections are sent out by truck, to be bolted together at the installation site to heights of up to 110 feet.

The value of experience

In addition to learning how to make the towers more efficiently, the company also recently hired as executive vice presidents Lars Moller and Matthew Gadow, two executives with extensive experience in the industry.

"With this move, Tower Tech is making a bid to be one of the top wind manufacturers in North America.," Michael Vickerman, executive director of Renew Wisconsin, a Madison group promoting the use of renewable energy, said in an e-mail. The duo came to Tower Tech from DMI Industries, a wind tower maker in Fargo, N.D.

Asked if plans for the future include expanding Tower Tech to making all or most of the components of windmills, Brickner is circumspect, noting that he runs a public company.

But in an interview, he did say "everything is a stepping stone."

The manufacture of wind power equipment certainly is a stepping stone for northeastern Wisconsin, said Murphy of The New North. Going from making submarines to the production of wind turbines and towers "is not a radical change," he said. "It is an excellent adaptation of what we do really well."