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By Debbie Griffin, Reporter, River Falls Journal
Reprinted with authorization from the author

People driving past River Falls-based BioDiagnostics Inc. may notice cars parked all along the street in front of its building at 507 Highland Drive in Whitetail Ridge Corporate Park.

Those cars point to a good-news story still unfolding and growing despite a bad-news economy.

Managing partner and company founder Quentin Schultz smiles as he remembers opening 13 years ago in the Pierce Pepin Cooperative building.
“We started with three full-time employees, only two of them paid (not him).”

Now BDI has 28 full-time employees and about 60 seasonal people who work part-time during this, the busy season following harvest. Shultz welcomed two shareholding partners to the company last year, Craig Nelson and Denise Thiede.

The three operate a hard-to-explain but thriving business.

Wendy Zillgitt, an analyst at BDI, performs a protein analysis for genetic purity in the Isoelectric Focusing Lab. BioDiagnostics Inc. photo

BDI tests seeds. The company takes in hundreds of samples each week and performs the tests manufacturers need: Genetic purity, warmth, cold, electro-conductivity, genotype, vigor and others.

Usually, a client sends the seeds it wants tested, anywhere from 20 to several hundred in number.

BDI sends test results back to them within about two weeks’ time.

“The main seeds we test are field crops,” he said, explaining that most of them end up as either human or animal food.

That includes corn, sunflowers, soybeans, alfalfa hay, vegetables, flowers and many others. Schultz said BDI employs many agriculture and science students each season and estimates that about half the full-time workforce graduated from UW-River Falls.

“They’re bioscience and ag-based backgrounds,” Schultz said about BDI’s employees.

Finding home, success

Schultz looked in River Falls first when he sought to open an office in 1995.

“There was no place for us here,” he said, adding, “The River Falls EDC made it possible.”

In 2001, the local Economic Development Corporation helped Schultz move his growing company into the second building constructed in Whitetail Ridge. BDI took up half of the building’s 25,000-square feet.

Now it occupies the whole thing.

Schultz said the city had good vision in creating Whitetail and recruiting high-tech businesses.

He estimates that when the BDI site was still a field, the property might have generated $100 a year in taxes. Now, it brings $20,000 in taxes plus gets local business from the employees.

“In the U.S., we probably compete with eight other labs that do what we do,” he said.

Schultz said other labs offer different combinations of services, but when comparing revenue figures, BDI ranks among the top three. Business grew 40% from 2006-2007; Schultz suspects that figure will be 50% for the time period of 2007-2008.

It started out just doing one kind of testing then expanded. Today the company serves 40 clients internationally and about 400 domestically.

“Most of our customers are companies producing seeds,” Schultz said.

Some of BioDiagnostics’ tests involve growing seeds, as the lab workers in this photo are doing. BDI’s managing partner and founder, Quentin Schultz, digs the dirt used in the laboratory himself from an undisclosed location. Debbie Griffin photo

Farmers need to know they’re getting quality. According to Schultz, bad seeds can be a huge liability for a manufacturer. BDI derives much of its success from ensuring quality and backing up a maker’s reputation.

The informational items printed on the back of seed packages: BDI makes sure they’re true.

The owner says the other parts of the company’s success come from valuing BDI’s human resources and allowing employees the flexibility they need to manage their personal lives. He and Sales and Marketing Manager Julie Gore like their single-digit commute times.

“We work hard to treat our people well,” said Schultz.

He says the management’s background also gives BDI an edge.

“We’ve sat where they sit.”

In a former career, he was a quality assurance manager for the seed industry. He saw a need and stepped out to give back.

Another important step to success, claims the owner, has been working hard to earn his customers’ trust. BDI strives to deliver quality information every time, not just get by.

The company invests in equipment, employees and whatever helps create quality. The owner shared what he thinks is the real and most important answer to the question, “What is BDI’s secret to success?”

Schultz said, “For some reason, God has chosen to bless our efforts here.”

Original article: http://www.riverfallsjournal.com/articles/index.cfm?id=89509&section=Business

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