Sticktotiveness: Thunder Bay ice cream stick factory finally opens.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: FORESTRY

Call it a fortuitous Google search for Thunder Bay. An Internet hunt for white birchwood, which led a British Columbia ice cream stick manufacturer to northwestern Ontario, has led to a factory that is now open for business.

Almost two years after the news first broke that Global Sticks was coming to Thunder Bay, the Surrey-based novelty wood company began pumping out product at its new factory on the outskirts of the: city in late May.

But just getting to the ribbon-cutting stage was a garden of agony for city officials and company management who faced a myriad of engineering, government regulatory and financing obstacles that delayed start-up by a year.

"All the banks said, great idea, but wrong timing," said company president Reggie Nukovic, a former restaurant supply salesman.

A combination of the recession and the banks' adversion to finance anything in the forestry sector made for some tough sledding in trying to raise working capital.

"This deal took 1,137 days to do," said Steve Demmings, CEO of the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission, whose staff shepherded the company through the site selection process, bureaucratic redtape and a search for project funding sources.

Global Sticks and its partner, Stormax International, specialists in packing machinery, are operating out of a combined 85,000 square feet of new space which has the potential to create 145 jobs with expansion. Currently, Stormax has 10 employees on site.

Demmings called the opening of two factories, "very satisfying" because of the time spent on the file since early 2008. The fact that the plant is in the neighbouring rural municipality of Oliver Paipoonge is of no concern to Demmings.

"All we want are the jobs in the region."

Northern Lights Credit Union and the TD Bank stepped up as the company's equipment lender and to finance day-to-day operations.

With the commission's assistance, the company picked up $5.23 million in provincial grants and loans since 2009 to buy machinery

"We have $6 million on the ground in equipment with $2.5 million to $3 million to come," said Nukovic, of his firm's total build budget of $15 million.

For Thunder Bay contractors and engineers, he estimates they've spent $7.5 million to $8 million.

The new plant contains a mix of new and refurbished stick manufacturing and packing equipment from Denmark, Spain and Wisconsin, the latter by eliminating a U.S. competitor in Solon Manufacturing. Nukovic's company absorbed Solon's...