Hello everyone!  We’re excited to welcome you all back after what we hope was a somewhat relaxing summer for all of you!  As you all know, the Minn-Dak Manufacturers Association takes a break from tours over the summer as we know everyone is busy, but the association board has been busy planning for new activities for the 2025-2026 membership year, and we’re excited to share some of those updates with you!
 
First, we start up our tour schedule again with a visit to Bobcat’s manufacturing facilities in Gwinner on September 16^th.  It’s an impressive operation, and we’re excited to get a first hand look at their facility.  Subsequent tours throughout the year include the Theraldson Ethanol plant in Casselton, Pactiv, Horn Plastics, and Rapat in Hawley.  Keep looking for updated events on our website here.  It should be a great year!
 
We are also kicking off of our September renewals and membership drive.  You’ve probably already received an email from Chad Wolf from McNeilus Steel, our VP of Membership outlining our new membership structure and benefits.  We’ve adjusted our prices just a bit, with the goal of still keeping our membership affordable, especially for our smaller manufacturers.  Part of our membership benefits will include trainings that we already getting on the calendar, including new programming offered by the Midwest Manufacturing Association of which we are an affiliate, and also Marsh McLennan.  Stay tuned for more information on those!
 
We also want to get your feedback on a couple things.  Every year we conduct a survey to make sure that we’re doing things that you all see as benefits, making sure our actions are meeting your expectations but also help each of you and your organization’s grow.  Finally, if you are interested in serving on the MDMA board, please reach out to me and we can share more.  We’re going to be a bit more open about board positions, with the goal of making sure we’re getting good representation from the different organizations out there doing great things, from small manufacturers to large ones, to wholegoods manufacturers to bioscience companies.  If you’re interested let us know.
 
I couldn’t be more excited for the upcoming year of activity with the Minn-Dak Manufacturers Association, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!
Also, I’ve created a basic SurveyMonkey survey that ties to the survey questions that were sent earlier.  You can see it here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MQ29DY2.  Please provide feedback, and if we’re good we can include a QR code. 

Patrick Mineer
MDMA Board President