The old redbrick mill on river road in Willington, Conn, recalls the textile factories that led American industry 200 years ago. Water from a bucolic pond drains into a sluice gate and rushes down a shallow millrace. A preserved power shaft still hangs from thick oak rafters. Step inside, where a slight chemical odor pinches the nose, and witness a new kind of industrial revolution. A dozen researchers, speaking a medley of Asian accents, bustle between a bank of fume hoods, works in progress and box furnaces set in a 10,000-square-foot lab. In the middle of the floor a tattooed mechanic with a mullet assembles a piece of testing equipment. He and David Reisner, cofounder and chief executive of Inframat, are among the few Caucasians here ― a small illustration of what you might call insourcing. "There just weren't enough [qualified Americans] around," Reisner says.
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