Growth planned for Ames in 2025, Norem says
Ramco Innovations will now be known as Ramco Powered by Sukup, as the company takes a step to align its branding with Sukup Manufacturing Co.
Ramco CEO Hank Norem told the Business Record the West Des Moines-based automation distributor is adding the tagline to its name to demonstrate its strategic partnership with Sukup.
“Ramco remains the same company customers have relied on for over 60 years — we’re just making it more visible that we now have additional resources, expertise, and support through Sukup,” the company said in a statement.
In the first year after Sukup’s acquisition of Ramco, Norem said the companies worked to understand each other’s strengths, and combining the brand recognition of both companies will make the partnership “even stronger” and create opportunities for long-term growth.
Norem said the integration between Ramco and Sukup’s operations happened “more quickly than we thought it would.”
“A lot of acquisitions that happen, they don’t actually see those synergies come through. We’re seeing them come through with what we’re doing here,” Norem said.
The acquisition created Sukup Innovations, an innovation arm focused on new product development. Norem said the debut offering, a farming automation platform called Synk, was a joint project combining Ramco’s automation capabilities with Sukup’s expertise in agriculture and manufacturing.
“That was truly a collaborative effort, and several [Sukup] employees are actually set up in the Ramco building,” he said.
He said Synk recently launched in the market at several major ag expos following a beta testing phase in fall 2024.
In addition to innovations for the ag sector, Norem said he sees opportunities to apply Sukup’s technologies to industries Ramco works in, including manufacturing, food processing, packaging and material handling.
Norem said he continues to see Maple Studios, Ramco’s on-site startup studio, as a pipeline for emerging technologies that could apply to Sukup or Ramco’s business. He said the relationship with Sukup has broadened the scope of what types of startups Maple Studios aims to bring in as members.
“We were very focused on automation technology, but now we’re casting a wider net where we’re looking at industrial technology, but it could come in the form of hardware, software, service,” he said. “Obviously, ag is where we have the greatest amount of intel because of the Sukup connection, but we’ll continue looking at and supporting the ecosystem here.”
Future investment and expansion
Norem said tying in Sukup’s branding will also help Ramco’s current expansion into South Dakota and Arkansas, where the manufacturer also has offices.
In fall 2024, Norem said the acquisition gave Ramco and Sukup presence along Interstate 35 from Sukup’s Sheffield headquarters and Ames office to Ramco’s West Des Moines campus.
He said there will be continued investment in growth across locations, particularly in Ames and the Iowa State University Research Park.
“We are basically at capacity in Ames, so we’re looking at taking the next step here in 2025 to grow our footprint there, because we’re out of space,” he said. “Many in the industry have pulled back. We have not. We’ve continued hiring, especially in the last 12 months, and we’ll continue investing in people and processes and even equipment as we work on the Synk launch.”
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