Diversification is key in Michigan manufacturing today, but one Muskegon millwright never expected to diversify into the wine business. Making and bottling healthy wines became his forte—right after he retooled and cleaned up the shop.
According to excerpts from the story:
MUSKEGON — "I'm no sommelier," said Donald Stolarz, grinning. But he is definitely an oenologist — as well as a millwright. Stolarz, a 48-year-old businessman from the Muskegon area who knows how to make things out of steel, took his wine-making hobby and his machine shop and put them together to start Lake Effect Winery.
Now he is making wine in industrial-sized quantities and has just begun selling it through retail stores in the Muskegon area.
"I saw what was happening to the economy in Michigan about five years ago," he said, referring to the overall decrease in manufacturing. "A guy couldn't make any money anymore," running a small, independent business providing rigging/millwright services to area industrial plants.
Read the complete story here.
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