A small company in northwestern Illinois with just seven employees has been honored for its "export success." Owners of Shank's Veterinary Equipment, from Milledgeville in Carroll County, traveled to Washington DC this week to receive an award from the US Department of Commerce.
Secretary-treasurer Jennifer Dettman says it's owned by her husband Mark, and with five other employees, they make "large animal surgery tables," mostly for horses and cattle weighing up to 25-hundred pounds.
They make about 40 new tables a year, plus related products.
Her company has sold their tables in over 30 countries, to nearly 150 universities and zoos. And she credits the Commerce Department's Export Assistance Center in Rockford for their success selling overseas, saying small companies like hers could never afford to pay for the help it's provided for free.
Shank's Veterinary Equipment was founded in Sterling in 1957. Her father-in-law bought the company in 1989, and moved it to Milledgeville.
Their slogan is "lifting large animals since 1957."
