Shown above is the location Riverside occupied until December 2006

Ribbon-cutting ceremony at our new facility, 2007

Street-view of our new 33,000 square-foot facility

Mic Weishaar giving a tour of our new facility (April, 2007)

Sheldon Mayer, in orange, giving friends and relatives a tour during the open house

Riverside Manufacturing, Inc. is the blood and sweat of Sheldon Mayer. Sheldon, a Native American and Gulf War Veteran, used his 10 years experience as a Senior Engineer at a local machine shop (with concentration in the Avionics/ Aerospace disciplines) as well as his 4 years experience as a master machinist in the Navy aboard the USS Saratoga to start his business.

Sheldon started Riverside Manufacturing, Inc. in 1997 after working his way up to a supervisory position at a machine shop in Brooklyn Park. The owner of that business was planning to retire and offered to sell the company to Mayer, who had come to work in Minnesota after leaving the Navy in 1990. But those negotiations fell apart and Mayer eventually found an investor willing back him in a shop of his own. During the first full year in business, Riverside sold about $300,000 to defense contractors and companies that make equipment for the commercial airlines. By 2000, Mayer had paid off the loan guarantor and had hired Weishaar, a veteran of the machine-shop business, to handle sales and marketing. Revenue rose to $1.3 million, and the projection for 2001 was for more than $2 million before the 9/11 attacks changed things. Immediately after the attacks, customers who were buying parts for the aerospace industry called to cancel all orders, and Mayer faced one of the ugliest realities of business ownership -- layoffs and losses. He and his wife, Molly, scrambled with Weishaar to keep things going with a staff that Mayer reduced from 13 to eight.  But opportunity knocked shortly after the door had closed to commercial airline work. Before 9/11, Mayer had taken on a small job making parts for dummy bombs used to train pilots in the use of laser-guided weapons. The military wanted a contractor to make "training rounds" that are cheaper than live rounds. Because this small company in Elk River had taken on that assignment for Lockheed Martin, a "prime contractor" to the government, Riverside was called upon to help Lockheed Martin fill orders when spending was ramped up for bombs, missiles and other war-related products, including parts for satellites and equipment used by the Department of Homeland Security to detect chemical and biological agents.

Within a few months, production was rolling again. After flat sales in 2002, sales rose to $2.3 million in 2003 and $3 million last year. The revenue comes from government contracts through the big companies such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics that are given incentives to subcontract federal work to disadvantaged businesses such as Riverside. At last fall's procurement fair, Weishaar and Molly Mayer, who is the office manager, met a federal official who spoke about Bush's initiative to support companies owned by veterans who had experienced disabilities. Molly told the federal official about the hearing loss Sheldon had experienced working on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The official postponed his flight back to Washington, D.C., so he could spend a day in Elk River advising the Mayers and Weishaar on the process for adding another certification to their applications for federal contracts. Mayer said such preference programs for veterans aren't "handouts." Rather, he said, they are a way to reward people for their service to the country. "Veterans sacrificed a lot more than any college student ever has or ever will," Mayer said. "That's got to be worth something.“ He and Molly said that with the help of the SBA and other agencies, such as the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA), entrepreneurs have a shot at the growing government market. "We have talked many times about those little check boxes [on government forms] that say, 'I'm a Native American. I'm a veteran. I'm a service-disabled veteran,' whatever the minority boxes are," said Molly, who met her husband when she applied for a job at Riverside. "We've always said it doesn't guarantee us anything, but it gives us an opportunity to prove we have quality, delivery, performance and price.“