• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Medical Tubing and Extrusion

Medical tubing and extrusion technologies

  • Technologies
    • Balloons
    • Brain-computer interfaces
    • Cardiac Implants
    • Catheters
    • Endoscopes
    • Heart valves
    • Pulsed Field Ablation
  • Components
    • Connectors
    • Needles and Injections
    • Seals
    • Tubing Components
  • Manufacturing
    • Coatings
    • Extrusions
    • Machining
    • Molding
      • Injection Molding
      • Insert molding
      • Mold Components
    • Tools
  • Materials
    • Advanced Materials
    • Metals
    • Nitinol
    • Plastics
    • Silicone
  • Business
    • Distribution Agreements
    • Legal News
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Partnerships
    • Personnel Moves
  • Regulatory
    • 510(k)
    • CE Mark
    • FDA Breakthrough Designation
    • ISO Certification
    • Pre-Market Approval (PMA)
    • Recalls
  • Suppliers
  • About Us

How fast is Protolabs growing? Turns out it’s really fast

February 26, 2019 By Chris Newmarker

ProtolabsQuick-turn manufacturer Protolabs has an enviable problem: It needs hundreds of qualified advanced manufacturing workers, and it needs them fast.

When Protolabs CEO Vicki Holt started with the Maple Plain, Minn.-based company five years ago, it had 750 employees. Now it has 2,700, with plans to add 650 more this year. Most of Protolab’s growth has been organic, too.

“We like to grow leaders from the people that come into the company. … The technology is changing so quickly, and we have to be at the forefront of those technologies,” Holt said yesterday, after helping to show a few dozen Dunwoody College of Technology students around Protolabs’ CNC machining plant in Brooklyn Park, Minn.

The event was part of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) State of Manufacturing Tour, which also included Protolabs’ 3D printing plant in Raleigh, N.C.

Touring the Brooklyn Park plant with VP Rob Bodor, one could get the gist of how Protolabs has been able to grow so fast, with its revenue increasing about 29% to $446 million in 2018 alone. (Profits grew about 48% to nearly $77 million.) The company’s software automates many of the things that engineers typically do manually, such as optimizing designs in CAD files so that the least amount of material is wasted during production.

The CNC machines in Brooklyn Park were neatly arranged in rows; blocks of various raw material metals were organized on racks — each with a bar code matching the bar code of the job it was destined for. In some ways, the plant felt more like an Amazon distribution center than a typical CNC machining operation.

Protolabs’ fast manufacturing processes have helped created medical-related products ranging from fitness trackers to a blood-clot-detecting ultrasound system to ear-cleaning headphones.

The 215,000-square-foot Brooklyn Park facility includes 50,000-square-feet that Protolabs added after buying the building last year. The recently constructed space remains open, as Protolabs officials decide what their future growth needs require.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stopped by the building yesterday. He said the Minneapolis area needs more of the types of advanced manufacturing jobs that Protolabs is creating because they’re the easiest way for people to quickly make money and improve their status after getting out of school.

“You’re at the very beginning of it all,” Frey told the Dunwoody students. “By being there at the beginning of it all, you’re going to rise quickly.”

 

Filed Under: Machining Tagged With: protolabs

About Chris Newmarker

Chris Newmarker is the executive editor of WTWH Media life science's news websites and publications including MassDevice, Medical Design & Outsourcing and more. A professional journalist of 18 years, he is a veteran of UBM (now Informa) and The Associated Press whose career has taken him from Ohio to Virginia, New Jersey and, most recently, Minnesota. He’s covered a wide variety of subjects, but his focus over the past decade has been business and technology. He holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science from Ohio State University. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at cnewmarker@wtwhmedia.com.

Primary Sidebar

“mte
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest trends and developments in medical tubing and extrusion.
MDO ad

Sponsored Content

A new way to access scientific papers?

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.

Footer

Inv Logo

MASSDEVICE MEDICAL NETWORK

MassDevice
DeviceTalks
Medical Design & Outsourcing
MedTech 100 Index
Drug Discovery & Development
Pharmaceutical Processing World
Medical Design Sourcing
R&D World
Drug Delivery Business News

Medical Tubing + Extrusion

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
Advertise with us
About
Attend our Monthly Webinars
Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy | RSS