Two CEOs with strong ties to north Minneapolis have plans to expand their companies in a section of the city that has long been in need of well-paying jobs. Both projects are unique but have one goal in common: to help build wealth in the community starting with good-paying jobs for northsiders.
Entrepreneur Wendell Maddox founded his aerospace engineering and manufacturing company in 1984. ION Corporation is based in Eden Prairie, Minn. and employs 95 people. The company builds components that support NASA projects such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Rover. Other clients include Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Space Force.
“We work on products that are as large as trucks or as small as a micro circuit,” Maddox said while giving a tour of the ION facility. “Most of our products are designed by either NASA, or a prime contractor. Although some of our products are designed by us.”
Physicist Timothy Childs started TLC Precision Wafer Technology 33 years ago in North Minneapolis. It was an independent and private spinoff of Honeywell. He settled in the Twin Cities after earning his PhD in physics at Stanford University in California. Childs has developed products for the U.S. military and NASA.
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“We use a combination of millimeter wave … which is higher frequency than your cell phone, combining that with machine learning AI and high speed signal processing. And so we have partners from Intel to Boeing and Northrop people we work with to two local companies.”
Now, Childs is managing a few more companies and he plans to market his patented technology that he developed for the military and sell it to the schools for security purposes. The technology, Childs said, “can detect threats and weapons before they get to school.”
Both African American men share a vision: a prosperous north Minneapolis. This area of the city, which includes neighborhoods with large Black populations, has experienced decades of disinvestment and underdevelopment. The men want to break that cycle.
Childs and Maddox aim to invest in the area by raising funds from private and public funds. Childs estimates his TLC investment will cost $100 million, which he is raising from government grants, loans and private investors.
ION plans to expand its operations. The company will buy a proposed 110,000-sq ft building which is under construction at West Broadway Avenue and North Second Street. Estimated cost is $30 million.
Artist rendering of the proposed $30 million ION building at West Broadway Avenue and North Second Street in north Minneapolis.
Courtesy image
The companies aim to hire northsiders. ION will provide job training to new hires, Maddox said. Applicants must have a high school degree or higher. The company will pay between $25 and $75 an hour, he added. He has faith in the northside talent.
“It’s not rocket science, it really isn’t rocket science. You know, if somebody takes the time and initiative, they can learn. I know, they can learn.”
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020 became the impetus for the ION building project.
Anthony Taylor is the managing director RiverNorth Development Partners. The north Minneapolis based company is developing the ION project. The firm emerged in 2020 from a development group led mostly by white developers.
“After George Floyd’s murder, we were actually able to deeply engage around the potential of development around social impact,” Taylor said.
RiverNorth sought small emergent companies — prospective firms that value social impact — to partner with in the Twin Cities. The organization met and interviewed Maddox with ION Corporation, which employs 75 percent people of color in its total workforce.
“It was amazing to me that we had in our midst, an African American-owned company committed to delivering on social justice inside their organization already,” Taylor said. “And they were 37 years old, and no one knew their name.”
RiverNorth’s goal with the project is to bring 70 to 100 jobs into the area with most salaries paying $50,000 or more. According to Taylor, the northside has about 17,000 adults with a high school diploma or some college.
Childs, meanwhile, says TLC aims to hire at least 100 prospects from the northside as part of its plan to scale up the company. New hires will be paid at least $20 per hour, he said.
“We’re talking beyond living wage jobs,” Childs said. “Where the employee, the members of our team, can build their families and their community.”
Wendell Maddox said he wants to give applicants a chance.
“I want people to have opportunity without any kind of prejudice or any kind of discrimination,” he said. “That’s what they’re gonna get when you work here. I don’t care who you are, where you came from. If you do a good job, you will progress as well, as far as you want to in this company.”
