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USA - Bear Valley Castings opens for business in Parowan

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Bear Valley Castings held a ribbon cutting Saturday, signaling it's presence in Iron County and joining Cedar City based Agrinautics as metal foundry shops in Southern Utah.

Business owner Jared Meibos moved to Parowan two years ago to start the business and has built it from the ground up.

"I was managing a shop in Spanish Fork for about three years," Meibos said. "We were doing well and our group of companies was doing well. The investment bankers that owned us decided to sell. They sold our foundry to another company and that company shut our facility down. So I decided to start my own company."

He chose Iron County because of family connections in the area, and incentives the city of Parowan offered to open his shop, he said.

"First, my wife is from here," Meibos said. "My father and father-in-law are co-owners in the company. This land that the shop is situated on belongs to my father-in-law. So we came here because we had land to build the shop on, but the big thing for me is Parowan City."
 
Meibos said the city waived impact fees and brought power directly into his shop, which he says is the single largest draw on electricity in the entire city of Parowan.

"I have a (large) transformer and they (Parowan City) came and brought power right to my transformer. They did all the work and paid for it. All I had to do is pay for the transformer itself. Parowan waived the impact fees, and they wanted us here." he said.

Currently, Bear Valley Castings specializes in building parts for firearms such as the barrels to handguns, but Meibos says he can build virtually anything from metal – in his prior shop, he built aircraft parts. He would like to see Bear Valley grow to that point.

"Eventually we will expand," he said. "That is why our building is situated where it is, so we can expand with another building to the south and the north if I need to. I purchased some more equipment such as a CNC machine that will be here in May. Eventually, we are looking at employing about 30 full time people here in Parowan."
 
He continued: "To go through and do aerospace, I'll need to go buy even more equipment and that will require another building, and eventually we will do that. Right now I have everything I need for casting commercial products. I can do anything that anyone comes to me with, whether it's gun parts, car parts – you name it and I can build it."

Source: thespectrum.com

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