LINCOLN — When the pandemic hit shortly after they had launched a decorative metalworking shop, Sheila and Paul Johnson of Bennet, Nebraska, were worried: “What’s going to happen now?”
As it turned out, home improvement projects boomed and so did requests for the couple’s FabriPlas Metal products that range from fun fence toppers to deck panels featuring trees, wildlife and other nature scenes.
“Demand really went up,” Sheila told the Nebraska Examiner, “Like, it’s not stopped.”
A new state manufacturing modernization grant, authorized under a 2025 Nebraska law, will add a plasma cutting machine and a painter/welder to the business’ seven-person staff, allowing quicker response to custom orders coming from across the country…