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Minnesota Technology Magazine - Fall/Winter 2006

Up Front

Machine Scene

Darlene Miller has big plans for Permac Industries—and her local community.

—Becky Aldridge

Darlene Miller, Permac Industries

Darlene Miller wears a lot of hats these days. Not only is she president and CEO of Permac Industries, a Burnsville-based precision machine parts manufacturing company, she is also chair-elect of the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce board, a member of the International Trade Committee for Dakota County, a mother, a board member of the Hope for Tomorrow mentoring program, and the only female board member of the Precision Machined Products Association. Those efforts and achievements helped her earn the 2006 U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA) Minnesota Businessperson of the Year award.

Permac Industries started in Bloomington in 1965 as a machine parts manufacturer. Miller began working in outside sales for the company in 1992. Two years later, she purchased the company and brought it into the 21st century. Hence the SBA award, which is selected based on a company's growth in sales or unit volume, increase in the number of employees, financial strength, product or service innovations, and evidence of contributions to community-oriented projects. "We were an eight-person shop with revenues under $1 million—today we are almost $5 million in sales," she notes. "We were a very simple turning house—lots of manual machines. Today we have the latest in technology, including several axis machining centers with live tooling. In 1998, one person ran one machine; now one person runs multiple machines."

Permac serves more than 30 customers in various markets— hydraulics, food and beverage, and aviation, to name a few. But Miller doesn't plan to stop there. The company has been targeting the medical industry, and Miller has been active in efforts to make the city of Burnsville a hub for health care and medical technology. Already she is a member of the Burnsville Medical Advisory Board and board president of the Minnesota Valley Medical Network Association.

Miller has other big goals for her company as well. One is to double the plant's size over the next two years. "Plans are in place to break ground at the end of March," she says, adding that the company has been growing at a 15 percent annual clip.

For all the effort Miller has thrown into her business, she's equally passionate about the Hope for Tomorrow mentoring program, which she created with Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz and another local business leader. In it, women are paired up with eighth- or ninth-grade girls who are considered "at risk." The girls learn to speak in front of a group, communicate regularly with their mentors, and sometimes accompany their mentors on college and corporate visits. "The mentor is an adult friend who we hope will get [the girls] to lead a good path," Miller says.