Growing GradStaff of Minneapolis sold to national private equity firm

Minneapolis-based GradStaff, a college-student recruitment and job-placement firm that has accelerated its growth in recent years, has been acquired for an unspecified sum by University Ventures, a private equity firm that said it is the leading education-to-employment private equity firm.

"It's a great time to sell the company," said CEO Bob LaBombard, 61, also a founder in 1998. "We developed what I think is a unique business model, a national business. We felt we'd taken it as far as we could. And I felt there were other things that I was ready to do."

GradStaff, located in the North Loop with 50 employees, places about 2,000 college graduates annually and generates revenue of approximately $20 million. It has averaged 20 percent annual growth in recent years.

A new CEO, Brian Weed, has succeeded the retiring LaBombard at what has now been renamed Avenica.

"Millennials are struggling under the weight of student loan debt and persistently high levels of underemployment," said Weed, 54, a veteran business manager. "With the sponsorship of University Ventures, Avenica will expand its successful model to more cities, more colleges and more industries to provide clear pathways to meaningful career opportunities for tens of thousands of new college grads."

Avenica said it makes the entry-level job market more efficient by recruiting recent graduates using relationships with 900-plus four-year colleges and its advanced digital marketing capabilities. Avenica helps candidates focus on skills and career interests, and it coaches them for interviews and adapting to working in a professional environment. Some things, apparently, you don't learn in college.

Last year, Avenica filled nearly 1,500 positions with more than 250 clients in 37 states.

Avenica said it has an 85 percent-plus job-conversion rate after the evaluation period, as well as high retention rates of its placements two years into their careers that is twice the average retention rates for all college graduates.

"Avenica" has roots in French words for "future career" and better reflects "the company's approach to placing its candidates into career-track roles."

Neal St. Anthony

Eden Prairie-based Stratasys Ltd. has been chosen by Airbus to make 3-D printed polymer parts for use on the A350 XWB aircraft.

Stratasys' Direct Manufacturing unit will use its sophisticated commercial 3-D printers to manufacture nonstructural airplane parts such as brackets and other parts that are used for system installation.

The Airbus parts will be made on Stratasys' FDM 3-D printers and made with heat-resistant thermoplastic resin. Officials said they expect the project will help Airbus achieve greater supply-chain flexibility, improve costs and reduce waste.

Stratasys, which has dual headquarters in Israel and Eden Prairie, wants to increase its aerospace customer base.

Commercial applications for the 3-D printing machines it manufactures have greater returns than its consumer printing products. Stratasys' 3-D printers are used throughout the $13 billion aviation industry, mostly to make prototypes and assembly tools for NASA, United Launch Alliance, Siemens, Boeing and Airbus.

Stratasys, which lost $77 million in 2016 on $672 million in revenue, announced three new aerospace partnerships last month.

Dee DePass

"We had no previous connection to the White House," a spokesman said in an e-mail.

But the small manufacturer's brass was happy to exhibit.

The company, which started making wool blankets at the end of the Civil War, filled a White House table with blankets, throws and scarves.

CEO Tom Kileen and Mary Boudreau, who has worked at the mill for 63 years, staffed the event.

The White House expo, featuring everything from Faribault woolens to U.S.-made fire trucks, also drew criticism because of President Donald Trump's family's importation of Asian-goods for Trump-brand apparel companies over the years.