By GARY KAUFFMAN, Goshen News Correspondent
On a typical weekday, the production floor inside The Country Woodshop is a hive of activity.
Workers carefully but swiftly assemble the products in a brightly-lit atmosphere. A cacophony of noises from various electric machines pierces the air.
In the attached warehouse, a forklift emits a steady cadence of beeps as it unloads supplies from a semi backed up to the receiving dock. The other dock area is filled with finished products, awaiting the arrival of delivery trucks.
The office is more peaceful, but remains busy dealing with all the paperwork involved in running a multi-million dollar business.
This scene is repeated daily in factories throughout Elkhart and LaGrange counties but there is one difference at The Country Woodshop - the owner, Noah Bontrager, is a member of the Amish church.
Bontrager, 43, began his business 15 years ago and it has grown into the area's prominent manufacturer of dining room tables. It employs 20.
Like many of his generation, Bontrager was a farm kid but as an adult found limited options for himself and his children.
"I grew up on a farm but my kids never had the chance to farm, even if they wanted to, because of the lack of farmland," he said. "And I didn't really want to farm. Having my own business was attractive."
The Country Woodshop, on C.R. 43 in Goshen, is just one of hundreds of Amish businesses that has sprung up in Elkhart and LaGrange counties in the past 15 years.
Conservative estimates put the number of woodworking shops alone at 330 in eastern Elkhart and western LaGrange counties. More are located in the area around Nappanee.
In addition, there are hundreds of other types of Amish-owned businesses in the area: Metal fabrication, general stores, construction, cement, small engine repair, furniture stores, clock manufacturers, buggy and carriages, stoves and fireplace sales, book stores, accountants, farm equipment manufacture and sales, excavating, feed stores and many others.
Although electricity and phones are still prohibited in Amish homes, most Amish businesses use large generators to supply electrical power for lights and machinery and have access to phones with voice mail.
Some of the businesses are large and factory-like, employing dozens of workers, while others are small, one-man "shingle" shops. Most are somewhere in between, providing enough jobs for family members and perhaps a few neighbors.
"The Amish craftsmen can provide the outside world with almost anything you want," said Gary Zehr, director of the LaGrange County Economic Development Corp..
Indeed, Amish furniture manufactured in Indiana has already made its way to every state in the country.
Some products even find their way overseas. An Elkhart County buggy manufacturer made a carriage for a man in England. A woodworker in the Nappanee area built a cabinet that was eventually presented as a gift to a member of a Middle East royal family.
While there are many success stories, the recent recession has also affected many Amish businesses, especially those that supplied the RV industry.
"There's been a double hit," Larry Andrews, president of the Nappanee Chamber of Commerce, said. "Not only have they been laid off from their RV jobs but they made products in their "shingle" shops that went to the RV industry or were sold in the tourism trade."
Diversification has been the key to the shops that continue to stay busy.
Delbert Miller, president of A&R Machine Shop near Middlebury, said about 20 percent of his company's business was supplying the RV industry. That segment has nearly dried up.
"But we were diversified enough that we still have work," he said.
A&R laid off two employees, although two who left for other jobs were not replaced. Some weeks, though, employees have worked less than a full 40 hours.
Ben Mullet, owner of Mullet Custom Interior near Nappanee, supplies molding, doors and flooring to RV manufacturers and the residential housing market, both hard hit by the economy. But he said through diversification he was able to sell to the housing industry when the RV market was slow, and now has RV orders for January at a time when the housing market has declined.
Even The Country Woodshop has branched out from dining room tables to making cabinetry for the hotel industry.
Many believe that the economic problems that have affected the RV industry will lead to more home businesses in the area. Many in the Amish community welcome that change.
"It's something the Amish feel is very important, to have these crafts to teach to their children," Andrews said. "These shingle shops will expand and grow, and the Amish will become dependent on that income."
Perry S. Miller, bishop of Amish church district 65-2, believes many Amish men would rather work at home. And he thinks it will lessen the impact of another economic crunch.
"I'd encourage the guys to do something (at home)," he said. "It's okay to do things for the RVs but I wouldn't want to be totally dependent on them."