COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – A Coldwater company is quietly growing, while attracting business nationwide in supplying a majority of the products across the U.S. for a highly specialized medical industry.
Kilgore International was known for more than three decades as a human bones business, but in 1987 switched to dentistry and model teeth products. Mike Gregory started to work at Kilgore in 1989 and in 2010 purchased the company.
He spoke last Thursday at the weekly meeting of the Coldwater Township Sunrise Rotary Club and detailed how the firm moved from downtown Coldwater to a former car dealership site which in 2013 was acquired by Gregory.The company since the 1970’s was in the old Coldwater Post Office on Pearl Streetbefore relocating in 2015 to the previous site of Jay’s GMC on West Chicago Street.
Gregory told Rotarians that Kilgore used to supply from India skeletons and other body parts which were shipped to Coldwater.
Gregory explained that the hard plastic teeth anatomy models it manufactures in Coldwater supply 70% of the universities around the country offering dental hygiene and dental assistant courses. That includes Kellogg Community College and several others in Michigan.
Kilgore has added on more space at its building where 14 people are employed and this summer opened up a training center for faculty members to be updated on the latest techniques.
