Acticut Execs Get Extended Stay

Four days after their scheduled departure, three executives from Acticut International AB were content to spend some extra time in Fayetteville, where the company recently announced it will establish a new worldwide corporate office.

The trio was scheduled to return to Falkenburg, Sweden, where it will maintain a presence, but twice had been delayed due to volcanic ash stemming from an eruption in Iceland that disrupted travel worldwide.

“It’s better to be here and be happy than be traveling around Europe and be unhappy,” said Thomas Lago, Acticut’s chairman and chief scientist.

Acticut’s primary business is the design and manufacture of products involved in the wood- and metal-cutting industries, especially in the field of vibration-control. The company will perform research and development, sales and marketing, and manufacturing from its Fayetteville base, and employ about 10 people in its first year with hopes of expanding to 20 or more the following year.

Lago said the first group of employees will consist of “experts” brought in to set up the factory and get it in working order.  He said the idea is to “copy and paste” what Acticut has done – and is doing – in Sweden to Fayetteville.

Lago didn’t give specifics about the location and/or amount of office and manufacturing space the company will need, but said it will have some type of presence at the University of Arkansas Research and Technology Park. What Lago and the others weren’t shy about was their taste for Fayetteville, which they said offered many of the same things – good schools, outdoor activities, an emphasis on sustainability, etc. – they enjoy in Falkenburg.

“We feel at home here,” said vice-president Dane Ronnholm, who will live with his wife and two children in Fayetteville.