Dane Manufacturing is honored to have earned the FMA Industry Award thanks to the culmination of more than a century of innovation, resilience and strategic growth. This important award is handed out every year by the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) and recognizes a manufacturer that has shown excellence in operations, performance, growth and impact, both locally and nationally. For Dane, this recognition validates a transformation years in the making–one rooted in a strong entrepreneurial culture, strategic capital investment and a firm belief that putting employees first ultimately delivers exceptional value to customers.
History
For over 100 years, Dane has been shaped by an entrepreneurial passion that drives continual improvement. Today, that legacy is continued by President and CEO Troy F. Berg and his wife Michelle, who are just the third family to own Dane. Dane’s leaders have successfully navigated the company through major national events/challenges, including both world wars and the great depression. Since its earliest leaders, Dane has always held an innovative mindset that focused on strategically planning for the future. That same approach defines our success today. Dane operates with our vision statement: To grow Dane Manufacturing into the premier metal fabricator in the Midwest, maintaining our focus on employee enrichment and personalized customer-centric experiences. This vision provides clarity and focus across the whole company, guiding decisions for a better future as Dane responds to the rapidly growing and complex manufacturing market.
From Small Metal Fabrication Shop To Full-Service Contract Manufacturer
Dane’s origins are common to all small manufacturing businesses, a small metal fabrication shop serving local customers. However, what set our company up for success was its quality and reliable on-time shipping and a close partnership with our customers focused on solving problems and growing together. As customers’ needs evolved and expectations increased, Dane faced a defining decision: to remain a small fabrication shop or invest into becoming something more.
Dane chose growth, and over time the company evolved into a full-service contract manufacturer, capable of supporting customers across the country with fabrication, forming, welding, finishing, assembly and more. This evolution has allowed Dane to become an extension of its customers’ manufacturing operations. Dane employees invest time to develop deep knowledge of each customer’s business in order to create a meaningful and specific relationship. Visiting customer sites and collaborating directly on designs, methods and growth plans is what created a company that prides itself in our customer loyalty. With these practices being common and purposeful at Dane, it is no surprise that 75% of Dane’s customers have been with the company for more than five years and over 90% of 2025 revenue growth came from existing customers. It is the little things, like creating a deeper relationship with every customer, that Dane excels in. This makes them stand out in the industry and primed for continued success.
FMA Industry Award Winner
Dane’s success is not the result of a single investment or initiative, nor did it happen overnight. Instead, it reflects on a disciplined, multi-year strategy focused towards operational excellence and growing alongside customers. As customer demand increased and the manufacturing market grew, Dane invested ahead of growth, expanding into a 510,000 square foot campus. This move not only gave Dane more space to grow but allowed them to realize a long-term vision for facility expansion, including significant investments into new equipment and automation. The team recognized that equipment was just a piece of the growth strategy and set initiatives around improving processes and strengthening leadership to enhance our employees’ experiences. Each of these strategic efforts enabled the company to expand operations and grow revenue 191% since 2020.
Capital Investment
Forward thinking and a close personal relationship with customers allowed Dane to anticipate rapid growth. This compelled us to relocate to our new, large warehouse and allow the opportunity for an aggressive and ongoing capital investment plan. In 2021, we completed our move to our new campus and began a multi-year capital investment strategy focused on implementing state-of-the-art equipment and automation. At the heart of the facility is a Trumpf STOPA Automated Material Handling System, allowing autonomous material handling, real-time inventory management, and fourth shift production capabilities. Since installation, STOPA has contributed to a 24% increase in total machine utilization and reduced the production start times by 48 hours. 2024 and 2025 saw the continuation of this investment plan with the adding of several new additions to our facility:
Trumpf TruBend Cell 5000 – Manages large, heavy parts and can be integrated with our STOPA system. This enables lots of high-volume, fully autonomous manufacturing while maintaining top notch precision. This high-tech system is commonly found in aerospace and automotive products and is the exact machine that creates the panels on the Tesla Cybertruck.
Trumpf 8400 & 2100 Press Brakes – Forming can be a common bottleneck when customer demand increases. These press brakes were strategic purchases to expand the forming departments capabilities and address the need for a larger capacity.
Trumpf TruLaser Tube 5000 – This operates more than three times faster than the previous technology and provides the needed capacity improvements and redundancy to protect our ability to maintain production with our customers going forward.
Kuhlmeyer finishing equipment – This was purchased after a loyal customer approached Dane with the opportunity to assist them with the manufacture of their high-end kitchen product. This machine can support the needs of customer demanding flawless stainless-steel products.
Starmatik robotic unloading – This is an addition to the TruBend 7030 panel bender that Dane already has and enables robotic unload and palletization of parts to expand the machines capabilities.
Dock Expansion – Dane finished a state-of-the-art dock system that includes high visibility, indicators and automated dock plate for truck loaders. It also is fully enclosed to protect employees and equipment in harsh weather/winter conditions.
These investments, along with others, enable increased capacity and improve reliability so Dane can stay ahead of the market and continue to deliver quality products to our customers.
Operational Excellence
Pursuing the grow that we anticipated was coming our way required more than building a state-of-the-art facility. Our capital investment plan was matched with a deep commitment to process excellence. As Dane is an ISO 9001-certified manufacturer, we continually evolve our Quality Management System, applying both a Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) system as well as SQDC+ framework to our operations. QRM is a strategic initiative that focuses on reducing the lead times by eliminating idle work throughout the entire product process. To lead this implementation, the company hired Randy Hilgart, a dedicated and experienced Vice President of Quality and Continuous Improvement. He helped put our first QRM cell in place with more coming for a continued pursuit of efficiency. Dane also rolled out the SQDC+ framework which stands for Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and the 5S. This is a companywide framework that focuses on empowerment and accountability through team huddles for all employees to help deliver the best quality product to our customers. These structured discussions led not just by the team leaders, but by the individual employees, improve visibility and accountability when working through the operations while reinforcing a culture of continuous improvement.
English As A Second Language in our Dane Academy Training Room
Culture/Employees
At the core of Dane’s success is its people. The company operates under an employee’s come first philosophy, recognizing that engaged employees are essential to serving customers well and driving success throughout the entire company. This commitment has proved measurable results. Employee headcount has doubled since 2021, voluntary turnover averages less than 1% per month in 2025, 90% of employees would highly recommend working at Dane, and 85% report that their work feels meaningful. This led Dane towards receiving a Top Workplaces 2025 honor, which is award by a third party and solely based on employee feedback. Dane’s people-first culture extends beyond current employees and towards the future of the manufacturing workforce. This is done through strong partnerships with local educational institutions, including Madison Area Technical College (MATC). Through MATC’s internship and field study programs, Dane provides students with hands-on and real-world manufacturing experience, many of whom have gone on to become interns and full-time employees upon graduation. To reinforce our message towards employees, Dane launched Dane Academy in 2025 which is an on-site learning center that offers technical training, leadership development, ESL classes and personal enrichment opportunities. More than 25% of employees are active participants in our learning programs. It has been a goal of the leadership at Dane to emphasis the importance of putting our employees first and not only do they just say this, Dane takes actionable steps and creates tangible items to create a culture that is extremely welcoming to all employees.
Conclusion – What the Future Holds
Dane Manufacturing’s recognition as FMA Fabricator of the Year reflects more than just our operational success, it validates a philosophy built on innovation, people and purposeful growth. With revenue up 191% since 2020 and ambitious growth goals ahead, Dane is positioned for continued expansion across data centers, industrial warehouses and other emerging markets. As the company looks ahead, its focus remains unchanged, invest strategically, improve relentlessly, empower employees and partner deeply with customers. Those principles, forged over more than a century, will continue to guide Dane Manufacturing as it shapes to lead the future in metal fabrication.