Company

From Humble Beginnings, a Unique Company Emerges

From its inception, when it was founded by three engineers — Craig Nelson, Neal Vaoifi and Scott Young — Mission Controls wanted to be recognized as a full-service automation controls company, driven by a few simple principles:

• Controls engineering done right
• Secure employment
• Planned projects
• Improve the industry

And they did all that, and Mission Controls began to grow — not on the efforts of salesmen traveling to plants (there is no sales force at Mission Controls), but on word of mouth. One plant manager called another: "I've got this little controls company. You should take a look. Outstanding startup on my new CIP system." Chief engineers talked at conferences: "Check out Mission Controls. I had a bug in my receiving bay..."

By 1999, Mission Controls had 20 employees and contracts in a half-dozen states, with major national food and dairy producers. A few years later, the company's growth attracted the attention of the national media, hitting the Inc. Magazine 500 List of the country's fastest growing companies. Not long after that, Mission Controls was featured on National Public Radio in a story focusing on the company's unique no-layoff policy.

Mission Controls has about 25 employees, has rolled out several significant software products, and is recognized not only as a full-service automation controls company, but as a process-engineering company with special expertise in the food and dairy industries.