News & Events

The 38th Annual Joint Meeting of the Midwest U.S. – Japan and Japan – Midwest U.S. Associations convened in Indianapolis from Sunday, September 10 through Tuesday, September 12, 2006, attended by more than 570 representatives from the Midwestern United States and Japan. Lively discussions centered on the main theme of “Midwest U.S. – Japan: Racing to the Future Together”. As the delegate of Montgomery County and Crawfordsville, I wanted to bring back some of the highlights of the conference and how they relate to our community.

MCED recently had the privilege to present Crawford Industries with the Montgomery County Economic Development “Bright Star Award” for outstanding corporate citizenship.

Founded by Ken Crawford in 1959, the company was one of the first to manufacture plastic three ring binders with the capability to custom print on the plastic cover. Sounds simple enough until you find out that traditional inks will stick to polyethylene for about 5 minutes, after which they just fall right off. This problem became an opportunity and the birth of another Crawfordsville company, Norcote. It is safe to say that Crawford industries faced and conquered many challenges over the years as a leader in quality plastic sheet manufacture, information packaging and printing