MAMTC READY TO GIVE ASSISTANCE

Quickly now: What is MAMTC?

If you don't know, don't feel alone. It stands for the Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center, and the people who run it are the first to admit not enough people know about it.

MAMTC officials want to change that by putting the word out that MAMTC is alive and well and ready to help manufacturers any way it can.

Russ Lindenlaug, executive director of MAMTC from its headquarters in Rolla, was in Cape Girardeau recently to visit with the organization's local project managers, Dewayne Whitener and Robert F. Janota, who work out of the industrial technology department at Southeast Missouri State University. Lindenlaug said MAMTC wants businesses to know about its services.

MAMTC-Missouri is a program of Missouri Enterprise Business Assistance Center, a not-for-profit group that is teamed up with the University of Missouri-Rolla. Its services are aimed at solving technical and operational problems and providing hands-on engineering and technical assistance to manufacturing companies. It is partially supported by the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Some of its money is derived from client fees.

During fiscal 1998, MAMTC served about 650 manufacturers in 62 Missouri counties, including three in Cape Girardeau County.

MAMTC is another tool in a growing number of services that are available to Missouri's businesses and a valuable one to help keep the state competitive in today's world markets.