Fabricated Metal Products

Employees: 1,721

Businesses: 102

2006 employee wages: $64.7 million

Example companies: Paul Mueller Co., Custom Metalcraft, Mid-Am Metal Forming

The biggest challenge facing companies such as Paul Mueller Co., according to President and CEO Matt Detelich, is finding trained, qualified workers.

“Finding welders and skilled craftspeople continues to be a challenge,” Detelich said. “That’s the biggest thing for us.”

The company has about 80 openings it’s trying to fill, and he said that even though diversity in training has increased at local technical schools such as Ozarks Technical Community College, “their focus is not as much on the technical side of what we do today as it probably was at one time.”

Also, Springfield’s geographic location, he said, acts as a mixed blessing.

“We are centrally located in the United States, so there is some logistic advantage to that,” he said. “There are also some challenges, especially in our distance from mills, but we’ve been able to work around that. We use some smaller local companies to supplement our growth, subcontracting with them for strategic components.”