170 Jobs Secured at Larson Boat!

We are incredibly excited to share news about a loan that we just closed on a few hours ago...

Larson Boat Company has been a key business in Little Falls since the early 1900's. At it's peak a few years ago, the facility employed nearly 900 people. Because of the economic crisis though, boat sales plummeted, jobs were cut and the whole company was at risk.

With the help of four other organization we helped put together a financing package that will keep the Little Falls manufacturing facility open and secure about 170 full-time jobs. (Larson also hopes to add another 150-175 more jobs over the next couple years.)

The other groups that were involved included:

• The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development's Minnesota Investment Fund,
• The Economic Development Authority of the City of Little Falls,
• Community Development of Morrison County and,
• The North Central Economic Development Association, Inc.

In the words of Kathy Gaaslwyk, our president: "I’m very proud of our organization for being involved in this project—it’s a great example of why we exist and why we do business loans."

And even though we share this good news, our thoughts go out to the 180 people who were recently laid off from the Crestliner/Triton manufacturing facility here in town. It sounds like some of those people will be able to relocate to New York Mills but it's still a harsh blow to a lot of families here.

And it's proof that there's still a lot of work to do to bring jobs back to our central Minnesota cities!

For more information about the Larson Boat Company project read the official news release from today, a recent article from the Morrison County Record or visit the Larson website.