Last week State Representative Christopher Davis visited Arrow Diversified Tooling, located on Pinney Street in Ellington. Arrow, founded in 1970, is a small company of 20 employees that specializes in 3d programming and milling and tool design and manufacturing.
Davis spent time speaking with company President David Trench and Vice-president Janis Ekeberg about the difficulties of running a business in Connecticut. Trench and Ekeberg said the high cost of doing business in Connecticut, specifically health care costs and energy costs, are placing a heavy burden on their ability to employ people. They also explained that there is a lack of young, skilled workers in the job pool which will make it difficult to replace their older workers when they retire.
“It’s no secret what the problems facing business in this state are,” said Davis. “Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of focus on fixing those problems. Too many people want to apply band-aids and short term fixes to help encourage business growth when we need to focus on fixing the underlying problems to ensure we have long-term and sustained growth.”
After their discussion, Trench and Ekeberg treated Davis to a tour of the manufacturing floor and introduced Davis to their employees to give them the opportunity to meet and ask any questions.
“I really enjoy the opportunity to meet with the employees and tour these businesses,” said Davis. “These workers seem to have a better grip on how to improve the economy than many politicians do- I just wish Hartford spent more time listening instead of dictating.”
Davis has visited a number of businesses in East Windsor and Ellington this summer. He was recently appointed to the Task Force to Study Business and Industry Barriers in the State, and is hoping to report back to the committee with everything he learns on these tours.
