HOUGHTON – A new MTEC SmartZone company celebrated its satellite office in Houghton with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Lakeshore Center Friday afternoon.

Systems Control, an Iron Mountain-based electrical construction company, opened its Houghton office in May.

It had been looking at opening the facility for a year and a half, said David Rowe, manager of the Houghton office.

“With the proximity to the university, the engineering talent, the technical ability that we have in this community, we thought it’d be natural for us to open the office here, and take advantage of the talent pool and the strong work ethic,” he said.

The satellite office employs 10 people – three full-time staff members and seven co-ops or interns.

Systems Control plans to add more. Rowe said the company has right of first refusal on adjacent office space in the Lakeshore Center. Within the next year, he said, the company could grow to 20 or 25 people.

“We’re looking for the right combination of experience and educational background,” he said. “Somebody who’s looking to move back to the area perhaps, to do some protection and control work, or some design work, we’d like to provide an opportunity for those people to come back and find employment.”

Systems Control and Michigan Technological University have a long connection. President and CEO David Brule was on Tech’s Board of Control. When Tech began instituting Lean principles, an organizational structure for continuous improvement, it turned to Systems Control for advice on how it used the process. Systems Control also employs 46 Tech alumni and nine students.

“We went back and forth on a number of things: They help us out with things, we help them out with things,” said President Glenn Mroz. “It’s really been a great relationship through time. We’re just really pleased that they’re coming into the Houghton community in a big way, so that they can get their internship while they’re taking their classes here and they don’t have to travel 500 or 600 miles away.”

Brule was on the Board of Control when the university was considering buying the Lakeshore Center. He was one of those who insisted it be self-supporting from a revenue basis.

“I regret that now,” the new rentpayer joked.

The Lakeshore Center space is a great resource for the company, Brule said. He thanked SmartZone CEO Marilyn Clark for working closely with Systems Control during its transition into the building.

The work employees do at the Houghton office will be transmitted back to Iron Mountain and integrated into the manufacturing process there, or delivered to customers as a finished product of engineering design work.

Rowe characterized the first few months of the office’s operation as a “great success.”

“It’s been phenomenal to be partnered here with the MTEC Smartzone,” he said. “They’ve been very helpful in terms of helping us get established in the community and getting the office up and running.”