Endeavor Composites cuts ribbon on new advanced manufacturing facility in Louisville
The new facility marks Endeavor Composites' transition into a manufacturing company ready to serve major industrial and national security markets.
Anyone who has met Hicham Ghossein knows he has a love for space. As a child in Lebanon, he looked up at the sky and asked how people could get there. His family told him Americans were making the trip. Years later, Ghossein is living the American dream.
On Friday afternoon, his company, Endeavor Composites, opened an approximately 22,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility perfect for fiber preparation, wet-laid and air-laid production, research and pilot labs, machining, forming and composite curing.
Since its founding in 2019, the company has doubled its revenue every year.
Ghossein opened the ceremony by reflecting on this growth.
“Our country faces a lot of challenges, and to stay on the cutting edge, we need to manufacture faster and at greater volume. But this gives us a chance to innovate,” he explained. “This is a new era of manufacturing. Composites are the new sheet metal. For us, delivering a return on investment is a duty. So many have invested in us: this country, our community, the university, our professors, our clients and the government. This is just the beginning of us delivering that return. Our goal is to keep growing and introducing new products that make America the manufacturing powerhouse it is.”
Ghossein grew emotional as he thanked his mother, who encouraged his dream from a young age; his wife, who has shared the hardships of building a startup; and his team.
He also recognized three ecosystem partners who were instrumental in Endeavor’s growth, each of whom spoke at the event:
“We talk about tech transfer, but what does that really mean? This is what it really means,” said Maha Krishnamurthy of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF). “It is taking lab innovation to real-life commercialization to make our lives better. This expansion is not just a win for your company. It’s a profound validation of the entrepreneurial pipeline that we have worked so hard to cultivate right here in East Tennessee.”
Chad Duty, CEO of The Composites Institute (IACMI), called Ghossein “the poster child of the ecosystem that we have talked about for years in East Tennessee.” Duty noted that most startups fail within a few years, so reaching this milestone and being years into the business speaks volumes.
“When you look up what ‘endeavor’ means, the definition is a serious, determined effort, or a purposeful project aimed at achieving a goal,” Duty said. “I’d say that this was that goal. We’re thrilled with this facility and can’t wait to see where you go. And we’ll continue to be behind you.”
Dan Miller, program director of Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), said growing a high-tech business requires founders to perform “two miracles.” The first is making the technology work at scale. The second, and harder, is convincing people to become customers.
“Technology doesn’t sell itself,” Miller said. “It takes talented entrepreneurs, like Ghossein, to find product-market fit and sell a new innovation.”
Miller said the program’s most exciting development over its 10 years has been its peer founder network. Most of its companies remain in Knoxville, and earlier founders mentor newer ones. Ghossein has mentored many of them. “Thank you for being a rock in our network,” Miller ended.
It takes a village
The celebration’s recurring theme was community. Support from family, friends, academia, IACMI, ORNL, Innovation Crossroads, PYA and local banks like Pinnacle have helped carry Endeavor forward. Even the building that Endeavor took over tells that story: It previously housed SkyNano, another Innovation Crossroads alumnus, who now gets to pass the torch.
Take a look at some shots from the facility tour and celebration!
Follow Endeavor Composites on LinkedIn.
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