Cold Weather Testing Facility gets new owner

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

June 6, 1996

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

The Cold Weather Testing Facility located at Puposky Lake has been sold and is under new management.

The Bosch Group completed an acquisition April 12 of AlliedSignal's worldwide hydraulic braking and anti-lock braking systems businesses, including the Puposky Lake facility.

The testing facility was constructed in 1989 on a 117-acre tract east of the lake, which is located about 16 miles north of Bemidji. A test building is surrounded on three sides by an asphalt testing track and, on the lake side, by a 1,400-foot-long and 400-foot-wide stretch of the lake.

According to Bob Danielson, director of engineering for Bosch Automotive Proving Grounds, the site will be used in a slightly new way. When AlliedSignals owned the facility, the company used it predominantly to test its own products.

"We're basically going to be doing outside contracting," he said. "We will be doing the testing, but we will be doing it on behalf of vehicle manufacturers and other types of companies."

Henry Rossiter of Bemidji, vice chairman of the International Falls-based Minnesota Cold Weather Resource Center board, said he believes the way Bosch will be using the facility will bring new opportunities to the Bemidji community.

"This will bring a lot of new testers into the Bemidji area," he said. "And the will see our testing facilities and testing abilities. This should open up a larger market."

According to a news release, the Cold Weather Resource Center board also find the Puposky Lake sale "extremely positive."

"The facility is first class in terms of physical assets and its management and will provide an opportunity to lure a wide variety of testing groups to the Bemidji area," the release stated.

For now, Danielson said Bosch does not plan any structural changes to the facility, and the company will "probably just exploit the existing facilities."

However, Danielson said Bosch was actively looking for new companies that would test their products at Puposky. If Bosch can find the business, he said they would like to be able to operate the company year round.

Due to the conditional use permit for the property, he said Bosch would inform the area if the company decided to do some new type of testing.

"We have to be good neighbors to our neighbors," Danielson said. "We don't plan on testing tanks or evaluating Howitzers there."

Danielson said Bosch has been working in the Bemidji area since the early 1980s, and the company has found a good local work force.

"The people do a good job," he said. "And our customers like what we do there."

The Bosch Group is an international company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a Bosch news release, in 1995 Bosch had 154,000 employees. Currently, at the Puposky site, the company employs about 20 people on two shifts, Danielson said.