Aagard Group Breaks Ground For New Construction 11/4/2005
Aagard Group, LLC and its partners The Alexandria Area Economic Development Commission, the city of Alexandria and ORB Management would like to announce the ground breaking and beginning of construction of the Aagard Group’s new facility in Alexandria.
On Friday, October 28, Aagard Group, LLC broke ground on their new building site at 3711 Iowa Street, Alexandria. The planned facility will include 16 acres and have building space of 36,000 square feet, including both office and manufacturing space. The new building site arises from a need for additional space that Aagard has experienced due to their rapid growth since founding in 1997.
Aagard Group, LLC was founded in 1997 by Brenton Smith and Tory Bjorklund with the goal of “leveraging technology to build a consortium of highly automated, synergistic companies” (Aagard Mission Statement). Smith was the founder of Brenton Engineering and Bjorklund was the founder of Bjorklund and Associates.
As an added highlight of Aagard’s success, Inc. Magazine has ranked them as number 90 in its listing of 2005’s 500 “fastest growing privately held businesses in America.” Aagard has been awarded this designation because of their incredible growth rate of 927.4 percent in three years, and also because of the reasons behind their growth.
“Aagard saves clients money through efficiency: its products combine and integrate operations and are roughly half the size of standard devices,” said Inc. Magazine in their November 2005 issue.
In addition to being nationally recognized, Aagard Group has received local and state recognition as a strong and expanding company. Aagard has received formal approval of a business subsidy agreement with the city of Alexandria, allowing the company’s expansion to move forward with JOB Zone benefits.
The Minnesota Job Opportunity Building Zones (JOBZ) benefits include tax exemptions that give growing companies the incentive and ability to expand operations and increase their labor force. These benefits are part of Governor Pawlenty’s rural economic development plan that has the specified goal of stimulating economic development activity in rural Minnesota by providing local and state tax exemptions.
Aagard Group, LLC is currently located at 2504 Aga Drive, Suite B in Alexandria and employs 40 full-time equivalent workers and will be increasing the number of full-time equivalent employees to 50 in two years and to 65 in five years.
- Echo Press
