U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Electrichlor: Utilizing Interns to Realize New Markets

With the help of: Manufacturing Works

About

Electrichlor provides over 50 years of combined experience with water treatment, cathodic protection, field engineering, and manufacturing within the onsite hypochlorite generation industry.

The Challenge

Electrichlor has had tremendous success in producing systems focused on the cleansing of ballast systems for ocean going vessels, but had begun to notice a plateau in their share of that market.  With this, the idea of diversification into a water cleansing system for municipalities began to take shape and needed scoped out. Based on previous experience working with Manufacturing Works, part of the MEP National Network™, Electrichlor decided it would be a great fit to consult with the team to help vet this idea, and see what resources the Center and the state could provide to help make the project move forward.  
Manufacturing Works has been a huge asset to the success of Electrichlor in the past several years. One of the most recent examples has been helping Electrichlor secure a University of Wyoming Chemical Engineering intern. With MW’s recommendation, I interview and hired the UW student. The intern has helped our PLC engineer program and test a new endeavor that were able to start and finish ahead of schedule. The intern has worked out extremely well and we are looking to hire him after he graduates in the spring of 2023. Without the help of MW, my job would have been a lot more difficult with finding the right person and securing the funding to bring them on board as Electrichlor is a small company.
— Darwin Keeney, Sales and Operations Manager

MEP's Role

While researching the new market, it was determined that there was enough work to be done to justify the hiring of interns.  Manufacturing Works looked at this project in two phases, first, an intern or two needed to be identified.  Secondly, facilitate the application of an internship grant, in hopes to bring maximum value to Electrichlor.  

 

Once the project was scoped out, Manufacturing Works went to work on identifying interns. As a university-based Center with the overarching mission to help create pathways to new careers, Manufacturing Works looked to the University of Wyoming to help facilitate this search. It was not long until the collaboration yielded a number of talented interns that would yield good results in the role.  Once an intern was selected, Manufacturing Works started phase two of the project, which was to aid in identifying and applying for an internship grant through the State. Due to the great working relationship between Manufacturing Works and Wyoming’s Workforce Development Services, it took no time identifying the right grant for internships. Once identified, Manufacturing Works and Workforce Development Services facilitated a grant application, ultimately seeing a successful award to Electrichlor.

Created November 1, 2022