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Incipio Devices announces $7.1 million expansion

Troy Johnson (center), president of Incipio Devices, and Mike Wack (right), the company’s vice president of development, provide a tour of the Commercial Road facility to (from left) Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters and Huntington County Commissioners Larry Buzzard and Tom Wall after announcing a major business expansion on Friday, Oct. 27. An unidentified employee is working in the background.
Troy Johnson (center), president of Incipio Devices, and Mike Wack (right), the company’s vice president of development, provide a tour of the Commercial Road facility to (from left) Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters and Huntington County Commissioners Larry Buzzard and Tom Wall after announcing a major business expansion on Friday, Oct. 27. An unidentified employee is working in the background. Photo by Cindy Klepper.

A 3-year-old Huntington company that designs and manufactures replacement joints has announced plans for a $7.1 million expansion project that will nearly double its workforce.

Incipio Devices announced Friday, Oct. 27, that it will expand both the manufacturing operation and the research and development capabilities at its plant at 84 Commercial Rd., in Huntington.

Local officials who gathered to hear the announcement were thanked for their contributions to the company’s growth.

“Supply side startup in the orthopedic industry is pretty hard to do,” noted Troy Johnson, president of Incipio Devices.

Johnson, a 1985 graduate of Huntington North High School, founded the company after learning the industry during a 10-year stint at Zimmer, a Warsaw company that also makes orthopedic devices, and starting up a similar family-owned company, LHM, in Fort Wayne.

Then he decided to strike out on his own, leaving LHM and leaving the industry for two years in order to fulfill a non-compete clause.

When he resurfaced, he founded Incipio Devices, using the Latin word for  starting new as the name of his new company.

“I’ve always been in manufacturing so I’ve always enjoyed making things,” said Johnson, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University and worked in the defense industry before joining Zimmer.

With his own company, he figured, he could better give customers what they want.

Incipio Devices’ 27 employees design, manufacture and sell orthopedic implants — including hip, knee, shoulder, elbow and wrist replacements — and implementation, sending their product worldwide.

Incipio also has offices in St.-Blaise, Switzerland.

“It’s very important for us to have international exposure,” Johnson explained. “We have customers worldwide.”

Some of the product manufactured in Switzerland could be moved to Huntington once the local expansion is complete, Johnson said.

That expansion is currently in the final planning stages and construction is expected to begin soon, he said. It will allow Incipio to add approximately 22 new jobs by the end of 2020 while retaining all 27 current positions, he said.