INDUSTRY Ohio recognizes 25 companies for exporting efforts

The maker of Udder Cream is among the companies that received awards.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
Two Columbiana County companies have been honored by the state for exporting.
Receiving the Governor's Excellence in Exporting Award at a ceremony Thursday in Columbus were Redex Industries, which makes Udderly Smooth Udder Cream in Salem, and Magneco/Metrel, a Illinois-based ceramic shape maker with a plant in Negley.
The annual awards honor companies that have distinguished themselves in the international marketplace. Twenty-five companies received the award, with the Will-Burt Co. in Orrville being named Exporter of the Year. Will-Burt makes pneumatic and mechanical telescoping masts, light towers and accessories.
Udder Cream creators
Redex employs 22 at its plant in the Salem Industrial Park.
Bill Kennedy, a pharmacist, founded the company in 1975 after working as operations manager for an Alliance farm co-operative. While there, he helped the co-op produce a moisturizing cream that was used to heal and prevent chapping of udders on cows.
Kennedy developed the Udder Cream line of moisturizing products for skin and eventually began exporting the products to other countries.
Kennedy was at the awards ceremony and could not be reached Thursday.
Magneco/Metrel blends mined and artificially created minerals at its Negley plant to make refractory ceramic mix. The plant, on state Route 154, employs 45.
The mix is sent to customers, who use it to create ceramic shapes or spray it on surfaces. Shapes from the mix also are made at the company's plant in Gary, Ind. The ceramic shapes are used mostly in the iron and steel industry in high-temperature environments, such as blast furnaces.
Production from the Negley plant accounts for about 85 percent of the company's $42 million in annual sales, said Colleen Connors, general counsel for the Addison, Ill.-based company. Magenco/Metrel ships 36 percent of its products to other countries.
Connors said the company had limited exports to Canada for about 15 years but was forced to expand that business when the domestic steel industry nearly collapsed a few years ago.
"This has been a way for us to save the company and save our Ohio plant," she said.
The Negley plant is an ideal location because it is near the Ohio river, which allows product to be shipped by barge, she said. The ceramic mix is shipped to Europe, Latin America, South America, South Africa and Asia.
shilling@vindy.com