Torrent Engineering Seeks To Expand In Warsaw
MILFORD — It may surprise some Kosciusko County residents to know the snow produced for the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea will largely owe its existence to a company currently operating on a family farm outside of Milford. But that is the case, and the company, Torrent Engineering, in business since 2000, has had such success it’s “busting at the seams,” according to co-founder Joe Cousins.
“There’s been a lot of steady demand for our product,” Cousins stated. So much so Torrent’s current location is proving “constricting,” both in terms of space and, crucially, in its lack of real broadband Internet to support the large volume of emails and digital information circulating from around the world.
Torrent’s rural location prevents it from setting up the virtual private network necessary for continued growth, so, Cousins explained, it’s looking at properties in and around Warsaw where it can take advantage of the considerable infrastructure surrounding the orthopedics industry. The Warsaw Municipal Airport is another draw for the company.
Torrent employs nine workers at its Milford location along with a large subcontractor network around the globe. “We plan to double that and beyond,” Cousins said.
In spite of the company’s relatively small size, Cousins has found support at both the state and county levels for Torrent’s bid to remain local. “The state will provide abatement relief to stay,” he said, and the Kosciusko County Council will also soon be holding a public hearing on a tax abatement.
At a recent Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission meeting, KEDCO President George Robertson called Torrent “The No. 1 snowmaking producer in the U.S.” “It’s a neat project,” he added.
Torrent Engineering is, in Cousin’s words, “A very untypical business.”
A self-described “ski bum” in the ’70s and ’80s who got his start on the slopes of Elkhart County’s Mount Wawasee, Cousins soon ended up in Colorado where he learned there was a demand for more efficient technologies capable of moving a lot of water for snowmaking up a hill or over a mountain. “I knew there was a real need,” he remembered.
Armed with a degree in business from Ball State, Cousins and Mark Meadows, an engineer from Rochester, N.Y., began providing “high pressure, high flow” vertical turbine pump stations capable of supporting the infrastructure for snow. Many of the friends Cousins made skiing in Colorado also ended up being key people in the industry. “The snowmaking gods smiled on us.”
Since then, Torrent has built pump stations for resorts all across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and even supplied the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Currently, the company is working on a project in a resort in China as well as the site for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Cousins’ aspirations for the company’s location are not so far-flung. “We’ve been looking for some time at sites in Warsaw.”