Annual ranking showcases the fastest-growing urban businesses in America
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and FORTUNE announced that Windle Mechanical Solutions Inc was selected for the 2015 Inner City 100, a list of the fastest-growing inner city businesses in the U.S.
ICIC’s Inner City 100 program recognizes successful inner city businesses and their CEOs as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. Each year, ICIC works with a national network of nominating partners to identify, rank and spotlight rapidly-growing urban businesses, and the top 100 – determined by revenue growth – are honored on the Inner City 100 list published in FORTUNE.
Windle Mechanical Solutions ranked 93 overall on the list of 100. Windle – a highly respected, service-focused, machined component part and assembly manufacturer, specializing in engineered machined products for a variety of market segments including Aerospace, Oil&Gas, Bio-Pharma, and Power – reported a five-year growth rate of an astounding 89% from 2010 to 2014.
“The recognition by ICIC and FORTUNE is a true testament to the excellent quality of the team at Windle, and our ironclad focus on customer service – which has enabled our growth,” said Windle Mechanical Solutions Inc CEO Pete Windle. “We routinely deliver turnaround times in days instead of weeks, and we collaborate with customers frequently to solve their more challenging machining and assembly problems. We are also highly committed to technical innovation, and we continually invest in cutting-edge equipment and investigate enhanced processes to augment the speed and quality we can deliver to our customers.”
The full list of the 2015 Inner City 100 can be viewed on the FORTUNE website, here.
“These entrepreneurs are strong community leaders and industry game changers,” ICIC CEO Steve Grossman said of the 2015 Inner City 100 winners. “Their businesses are critical drivers of economic development and job creation. Together, they demonstrate the competitive advantages of doing business in our inner cities.”
The rankings for each company were announced at the Inner City 100 Conference and Awards on Wednesday, October 7, 2015 in at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, MA. Before the Awards celebration, winners gathered for a full-day business symposium featuring management case studies from Harvard Business School professors and interactive sessions with top CEOs. Keynote speakers included Governor Charlie Baker, Harvard Business School Professor and ICIC Founder and Chairman Michael E. Porter, University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor J. Keith Motley, Boston Beer Chairman and Co-Founder Jim Koch, Hill Holliday CEO Karen Kaplan and Uber East Coast General Manager Meghan Verena Joyce.
The Inner City 100 program identifies, supports and celebrates successful urban businesses and their CEOs as role models for innovation and job creation in America’s cities. The list provides unmatched insight into the impact that entrepreneurship can have on underserved communities. In the last 17 years, over 800 unique companies have earned positions on the Inner City 100 list, and alumni include Pandora, JP Licks and Angie’s List. Chevron Corporation and Staples, Inc. are long-time sponsors of ICIC and the program.
Boasting an average five-year growth rate of 378 percent between 2010 and 2014, the 2015 Inner City 100 winners represent a wide span of geography, hailing from 45 cities and 23 states. Collectively, the winners employ 6,168 people, and on average, over a third of their employees live in the same neighborhood as the company.
Highlights of the 2015 Inner City 100 include:
- Employ 6,168 workers total.
- Created 3,755 new jobs in the last five years.
- On average, 32% of employees live in same neighborhood as the company.
- Average company age is 15 years.
- Average 2014 revenue is $12 million.
- 25% have female CEOs.
- 40% have a minority CEO.
- 12% of the winners are certified veteran-owned.
Inner City 100 Methodology: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) defines inner cities as core urban areas with higher unemployment and poverty rates and lower median incomes than their surrounding metropolitan statistical areas. Every year, ICIC identifies, ranks, and spotlights the 100 fastest-growing businesses located in America’s inner cities. In 2015, Companies were ranked by revenue growth over the five-year period between 2010 and 2014. This list was audited by the independent accounting firm Rucci, Bardaro, and Falzone, PC.
Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)
ICIC is a national nonprofit founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC’s mission is to promote economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investment that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents. Through its research on inner city economies, ICIC provides businesses, governments and investors with the most comprehensive and actionable information in the field about urban market opportunities. The organization supports urban businesses through the Inner City 100, Inner City Capital Connections and the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programs. Learn more at www.icic.org or @icicorg.
Windle Mechanical Solutions Inc
Windle is a service-focused, machined component part and assembly manufacturer, specializing in engineered machined products for a variety of market segments, including Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Bio-Pharma, and Power. Founded in 2006, Windle offers its customers a highly skilled workforce, comprised of both experts with 25+ years of experience in machining precision parts and talented young professionals with fresh ideas and insights. Windle is an AS9100C and ISO 9001-2008 certified organization, employs the latest CAD CAM software as part of its manufacturing process, and applies a variety of high precision CNC and conventional machine tools that yield unique, time sensitive, precision solutions. Learn more about Windle at www.windlemechanical.com.
