28 Spirit Fall 2020 Edition
BY JOB VIGIL jvigil@nptelegraph.com
Monarch butterflies rely on milkweed, but Herb Knudsen saw business potential in the plant. He turned his research trying to create biofuel from milkweed into a business venture in Ogallala. Knudsen founded Ogallala Comfort in 1987 and the business continues to grow. Knudsen died in April, but his daughter Debbie Dekleva has taken over. Now three companies are under the same roof, each with different functions. Ogallala Comfort manufactures pillows and comforters produced from milkweed fiber and goose down. Monarch Flyway purchases and sells the raw material from milkweed. The newest company, Milkweed Balm, is manufacturing products created from milkweed as well. The companies continue to explore uses for milkweed and its byproducts. Monarch Flyway received the 2019 Innovation Business of the Year award from the Nebraska Business Development Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The story began while Knudsen worked for Standard Oil of Ohio. “He was based in Cleveland, Ohio, and the company was trying to create a biofuel from milkweed,” Dekleva said. “(SOHIO) figured out that might not be super-economical to do, and they thought, I wonder what else we can do with this stuff.” Through their research, SOHIO found a number of practical uses for milkweed. “They had gone and figured out that you can also do insulation and oil spill cleanup and all these different things with the milkweed,” Dekleva said. “My dad worked really hard on that for a few years, and then British Petroleum did a takeover of SOHIO, and they said if the work does not have to do with petroleum, they really weren’t interested in continuing it.” The milkweed project, she said, was eliminated in that acquisition. “My dad, as he was trying to figure out ‘what do I want to do for the rest of my life,’” Dekleva said, “was like, ‘I don’t want to do petroleum and I don’t want to work for BP.’” Knudsen decided to purchase the milkweed business from SOHIO. “At the time, he was working with some growers in Nebraska that were stationed in Minden and Paxton,” Dekleva said. She said Knudsen grew up in Nebraska, so it was “a kind of a coming home for him anyway.” Knudsen started by commuting between Cleveland and Ogallala. “But that was really hard on the family,” Dekleva said. “After he got things started a little bit here, he moved the family to Ogallala.” SOHIO had a budget of millions of dollars when it started the research with milkweed.
MILKWEED: GOOD FOR BUTTERFLIES, GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker