For nearly a decade, German-based windtest has kept its eye on the U.S. wind market, primarily through its annual attendance at the WINDPOWER Conference & Exhibition. Now, the wind measurement company is fully committing to the U.S. with the opening of its North American headquarters in Iowa.
According to the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corp., Grevenbroich, Germany-based windtest will open its office in Estherville, near Iowa Lakes Community College.
The company is an accredited measuring and testing institute and made its name worldwide as an independent evaluator and service provider in the wind energy sector. windtest is accredited according to DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025 and is a member global wind measurement group MEASNET.
‘We have attended the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) trade show every year since 2006 and watched it explode and now contract in the last eight years,’ says Kathy Evert, president at the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corp.
‘When in Chicago five years ago, we made a cold call on a California company who, in turn introduced us the following year to windtest. We provided them some background information on the area, scheduled a trip to meet them in Germany that fall, met them each year at AWEA, hosted them in the Corridor region several times since 2011, and now they will be our newest international company and employer,’ Evert explains.
