In Utah, some of the state’s brightest minds are working on ways to improve bobsled companies that met with the Deseret News Editorial Board this week said they community needs above aggrandizement and working hard to overcome differences.
Each of the companies in this collaboration — Albany Engineered Composites, Hexcel and Nammo Composite Solutions — will contribute to the bobsledding effort in unique ways. Hexcel specializes in advanced composites and will provide raw materials, Albany will manufacture components for the four-man bobsleds, and Nammo will build carbon-fiber cowlings for the two-man sleds.
The companies have no real bobsledding experience. Yet together they hope to shave enough hundredths of seconds down Utah’s bobsled track to make a difference in 2034.
That’s a prime example of creative out-of-box thinking. The CEO and president of 47G, Aaron Starks, had the foresight a few years ago to see this potential collaboration after a meeting with officials from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Now, the companies’ expertise in missile and rocket manufacture will be used to hopefully enhance national pride in a different arena.
The consortium also aims to help U.S. athletes overcome the equipment needs necessary to compete against the Germans, Swiss and LatFogt told the editorial board, “Not only do we want to win because we’re athletes, but we want to win for our country
“And to put the USA on your chest, and to be from this state and have this stuff made here. … You just can’t change the way that makes our athletes feel.”
The U.S. team already has a good start, winning three medals, including one gold, in Milan.
Medal counts are one thing. The type of innovative thinking that led 47G to form these partnerships is something completely different that bodes well for a variety of seemingly unrelated purposes that could strengthen Utah’s economy in many unforeseen ways.
It is, indeed, a beautiful thing.
