Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years.

What happened was I saw this ad for a yogurt plant for sale. It was in my junk mail pile, and I threw it into the garbage can. And then about half an hour later, with the dirt on it, I picked it up from the garbage can, and I called out of curiosity.

A manufacturing resurgence is what will give local communities and small towns across America a fighting chance for survival. Many of today's American entrepreneurs come from those very places but make their wealth elsewhere. We need to change that.

We took a plant that was being closed by a big company thinking there was no good use for it, and we came in with a different perspective. We bought some used equipment, as simple as we could.