A new video produced by the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) highlights a company that exemplifies why life science research and manufacturing is one of the optimal target sectors of the Lehigh Valley.

The video features Tyber Medical, a manufacturer of orthopedic and spinal implants, which moved from New Jersey into the Lehigh Valley two years ago, establishing a new corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility in Hanover Township, Northampton County.

When the company moved to the Lehigh Valley, it had four full-time employees, according to President and CEO Jeff Tyber. Today, it has 15 employees, and the company plans to hire up to 30 by the end of the year.

“The jobs that a company like Tyber creates in the region are important,” said Matthew Tuerk, LVEDC Vice President of Economic Development and Marketing. “But equally important is the message that that sends to the community and the world at large: that a business can come here as a relatively small startup and quickly be successful.”

Tyber Medical was among the featured projects highlighted in videos produced by LVEDC for its 2017 Annual Meeting last month. The video can be seen below:

In the two-minute video, Jeff Tyber and Tuerk describe how LVEDC was able to assist the company by providing them quality information about the region and resources available to help startups like Tyber Medical grow and thrive.

“As a small company with limited resources, we really partnered with the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation,” Tyber said. “We use them as kind of an extension of our resources.”

The company’s leased a 4,200 square-foot site for its Lehigh Valley headquarters. Barely a year after that move was complete, they were already growing: taking over an adjacent space and adding more in-house manufacturing as part of a $3 million expansion project.

Life science research and manufacturing was previously identified by Garner Economics as one of the four optimal target sectors of the Lehigh Valley based on the site-specific characteristics of the regional economy.

Those assets include its central location, proximity to markets, well-developed transportation infrastructure, strong workforce, large number of high-quality educational institutions, and high relative proportion of residents with bachelor’s degrees in engineering.

The others Lehigh Valley target sectors identified by Garner Economics include high performance manufacturing, high value business services, and food and beverage processing.

The Tyber Medical video was developed by ASR Media at PBS39, which also prepared featured LVEDC project videos about Guardian Life Insurance and Michelman Steel Enterprises. Those videos can be found on the LVEDC YouTube Channel.