In Iowa, soy-based lubricants maker Environmental Lubricants Manufacturing is back to full manufacturing strength after a fire in 2007.
The company is based on technology developed by Lou Honary during his career at the University of Northern Iowa’s National Ag-Based Industrial Lubricants Program. “We started the company in 2000,” Honary tells The Courier. “We couldn’t find any of the major petroleum companies to take the bio products under their wing. So we thought, the best way to prove the concept— that these concepts would be successful and make money—is to just show it in a company.”
The company’s original facility in Plainfield, Iowa was destroyed by a heat transfer oil fire, but it has since moved manufacturing to a larger, 80,000-square-foot plant in Grundy Center.
ELM’s products include railroad curve greases, truck grease that often melts and ends up in ditches on roadsides, wire rope greases used on ships and shipyards that come in contact with water, and drill rod greases used in mining.