Plainfield Company Ranked Among 5,000 Fastest-Growing

A company ranked among the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the U.S., according to Inc. Magazine.

Inc. ranked at 3,949 on the “2012 Inc. 5000 List.”

The company caters to agricultural clients, manufacturing electronic instruments and meters for weather and environmental monitoring, nutrient management, pest management and soil moisture and quality measurement.

“We’re a high-tech company,” President and CEO Mike Thurow said, adding Spectrum works with clients on both the research and production sides of agriculture and horticulture.

“Geographically, a little over half of our business is international,” Thurow said. Spectrum has clients in more than 80 countries, including developing nations.

Spectrum’s innovations help determine when crops should be watered or given nutrients, when an outbreak of disease could strike crops, or when to apply pesticide or fungicide.

According to Inc.’s rankings, Spectrum’s revenue has grown from $5.7 million in 2008 to $7.8 million in 2011.

“Our goal is to grow 20 percent per year,” Thurow said, noting that while Inc.’s rankings show a total of 22 employees for the company, the number is now closer to 30.

“You don’t have to be big to be successful,” Thurow said. “We have a lot of knowledge of different segments — agriculture, horticulture — and what keeps them up at night.”

Spectrum Technologies has managed to continue growing even during the economic downturn.

“We produce food and fiber, so we’re not as impacted by economic swings as some of our industries that produce consumables that aren’t essentials,” said Thurow, who grew up on a farm in Hampshire, Illinois.

The failing real estate market did put the brakes on plans to build a new facility for the Plainfield-based company, which will mark its 25^th anniversary in December.

“We outgrew our current facility here in the Woodcreek Industrial Park,” Thurow said. “In order to grow 20 percent every year, that takes people,” he explained.

The state of the commercial real estate market prevented the company from building, but Spectrum improvised by moving its development staff across the street to another existing building.

But Thurow said the idea a new facility isn’t off the table.

“It’s all a function of the economic climate,” he said. “If we have to wait it out another six months, a year, a year and a half, it doesn’t deter us from growing our business and expanding."

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