CORVALLIS, Ore. - The "Ping Meter" looks a bit like a GPS -- for
crop nutrients.
If you're a farmer or own a vineyard, Larry Plotkin thinks you
need one of these.
"What that does is that it lets a grower know whether their crop
is under or over fertilized," said Plotkin.
He's president of a startup business called Precision Plant
Systems, one of 17 companies under cultivation at the Business
Enterprise Center.
Call the center a greenhouse for startups.
The center has grown over 100 jobs in the last year and a half
working with 29 on-site and affiliate businesses.
Companies at the Business Enterprise Center pay monthly rent of
$150. For that they get office space, materials and about 600 years
of business know-how from the BEC board.
"We help those small businesses get that jump start and a leg up
and moving forward," said Executive Director Kathleen
Hutchinson.
"We did pretty well," said Jeff Gardner, CEO of ViewPlus
Technologies. "We grew over 40 percent last year."
ViewPlus makes machines that print text, graphs and visuals for
people with visual impairment.
Gardner has a staff that has grown to 50, both full- and part-time.
He credits the Business Enterprise Center.
"When you have a successful business like us, we're not moving jobs
off to Korea. We're not moving jobs overseas. We're staying right
here," he said.
ViewPlus Technologies is a graduate of the BEC, with part of the
operation off the Corvallis campus. Now it ships printers to 40
countries. The latest shipment is the company's first order to
Russia. The printers are going to a call center that employs blind
people.