State firm making tracks

Little Mattracks of Karlstad in the northwest corner of Minnesota is a homegrown manufacturer exporting products that will be featured at a seminar targeted at smaller businesses this morning in Eagan.

Mattracks, founded 15 years ago by CEO Glen Brazier, employs about 50 people who make rubber-track systems that convert many four-wheel-drive vehicles into all-terrain rigs that provide extra traction and year-round mobility for off-road conditions. Brazier will be one of the executives describing how the U.S. Commerce Department helped his company find opportunities and customers and navigate red tape and tariffs.

Mattracks' overseas business has grown from 15 percent of sales to 50 percent of sales last year, said Tom Wollin, who heads Mattracks' international and government sales.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., will convene the hearing on "Promoting Export Success for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses" at 10:30 a.m. at Skyline International Design Center, which produces trade shows and expositions around the world. In addition to Brazier, participants will include Michael Vekich, CEO of Skyline; Rochelle Lipsitz, acting assistant secretary for trade promotion of the U.S. Commerce Department and director general of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service; Michael Howard, Midwest regional director of the U.S. Export-Import Bank; and Tony Lorusso, director of the Minnesota Trade Office.

Fast-growing VAST Enterprises of northeast Minneapolis, which transforms recycled plastics and rubber into lightweight building materials, was named the "Cleantech Award" recipient Thursday at the annual Tekne Awards that recognize innovative technologies. VAST says it has kept 1.2 million pounds of material out of landfills over the past year.

A collaboration by VAST and Fabcon, an exterior wall maker, also won an award for a composite brick made by VAST that goes into Fabcon's wall panels. The panels, made almost entirely of recycled tires and plastics, are lighter and stronger than concrete. The companies expect to consume 350 million pounds of recycled material over the next five years.

Ecolab won the "green award" for products that help customers use less water and energy while reducing the amount of chemical waste released into the environment. In 2009, Ecolab joined the EPA Climate Leaders program, setting a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent per dollar of sales through 2012.

The winners are at www.tekneawards.org.

Interesting reunion scheduled Nov. 12 at the University of St. Thomas Law School: Four white-collar felons will be joined by the federal judges who sent them to the slammer in recent years for ripping off clients, shareholders and communities. They will discuss the consequences of crime and life during and after prison.

U.S. District Judge Joan Erickson will chat with Carolyn Ryberg, who ran an executive-search firm that was used by her husband, Nick Ryberg, a Flint Hills executive, in what evolved from a conflict of interest to a $1 million false-invoicing scheme. The couple served prison terms and paid $964,264 in restitution.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim will talk with Stephen Rondestvedt, who served four years in prison for stealing client funds and who now runs a primary care clinic for poor immigrants, and with David Logan, who orchestrated a bank fraud and bribed a county environmental official in connection with a hog operation in southwestern Minnesota.

Hank Shea, a former prosecutor and St. Thomas law fellow who's now focused on business ethics and preventing financial crimes, recently ran a 10-day ethics tour with white-collar offenders at Ivy League and other East Coast professional schools. The free St. Thomas program, targeted at the four Minnesota law schools and five MBA programs, is open to the public. More information: www.stthomas.edu/ethicalleadership/lessons.

Neal St. Anthony