Business View Magazine | October 2020

273 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 WELLS COUNTY, Indiana WELCOME TO THE COMMUNITY A collaborative combo of entrepreneurial spirit, solid work ethic, and willingness to roll up sleeves and embrace the future makes Wells County, Indiana a haven of stability and continued growth for employers, as well as employees. Wells County has a population just over 28,000, and its county seat, the City of Bluffton, is home to over 10,000 of those residents. Business ownership in Wells County includes local, private entrepreneurs, and multi-national firms that produce items for the automotive industry, medical industry, plastic molding, and snacks, just to name a few. The landscape being predominately rural, over 85 percent of County land use is agriculture- related – growing mostly beans and corn. Agribusiness also thrives in Wells County, supporting new technology in bio-fuel, and high-tech animal feeding operations. Chad Kline, Wells County Economic Development Director, reports, “From the economic development side, we’ve had some really positive growth. We’ve attracted several new companies over the last few years. Some of the most recent: 2020 Custom Molded Plastics – since 2017, they’ve made an investment of more than $40 million in a 240,000- sq.-ft expansion to an existing building that they purchased. That project will add over 200 jobs. Another big project we recently won was Inteva Products out of Michigan. They will invest over $42 million, creating 419 jobs within the City of Bluffton.”