On top of a hill overlooking Interstate 44 in Rolla sits a new, 117,000-square-foot building.
This building that's bigger than two football fields is the Protoplex, and it has an equally large goal — to be the center of an effort to bring manufacturing back to rural Missouri.
The Protoplex is filled with manufacturing equipment, labs and even a foundry. Missouri University of Science and Technology, the state and other partners intend it to bring a modern approach to manufacturing to the campus and the entire region by giving companies a space to try out new manufacturing processes before they build their own facilities when they outgrow rented space.
"The Protoplex shortens the path for innovation to validation to production to customer delivery," said Dhiraj Pisal, who leads venture incubation efforts at Massachusetts-based Solvus Global.
Solvus has more than $1 million of its equipment installed in the Protoplex. It has three full-time engineers working there now, is looking for a fourth person to lead the team, and will eventually hire technicians and operators. The plan is for that workforce to come from S&T and area community colleges.
Pisal said the idea is to eventually have a facility nearby.
"The rural region like Rolla offers lower operating cost and strong technical competencies that we can bring locally there," he said. "We see a long-term value to that."
Caterpillar, Boeing and VRC Metal Systems also have space and employees in the Protoplex.
Heath Rhyneer, a December 2025 graduate of Missouri S&T, is a mechanical engineer for Solvus and one of the first employees to be working in the new facility. He said staying in Rolla and working for Solvus was an easy choice.
"I like the work at Solvus, and I like Rolla," he said. "It's close to home. I like the area. I lived here while I was going to S&T. I think it's a good, good place to be."
Rhyneer is from Belgrade, a town of 200 about 90 miles south of St. Louis. He said his career ambitions never included moving to a big city or one of the coasts, so he could see Rolla as his long-term home.
Protoplex wants to tap into local workers like Rhyneer. S&T has engineering graduates with ties to the area or learned to love the region while going to school.
But the vision for local manufacturing goes beyond S&T.
"That pipeline is not only for engineers," said Rick Billo, S&T's director of advanced manufacturing. "It's for technicians, and it's for production workers. And so we team with the community college because they specialize in providing techs and production workers."
S&T is partnering with East Central College and St. Charles Community College to help build curriculum and provide opportunities for technicians to get the skills needed to work at the Protoplex or the spinoff companies and locations the university hopes to see come from the project.
The Protoplex is also using its massive space to help existing manufacturers and give students opportunities to work on real-world problems.
A Missouri company S&T could not name because of a nondisclosure agreement has hundreds of production machines that aren't working correctly. One of those machines is in the Protoplex right now undergoing testing by S&T students.
"Our senior design students physically come here, take the measurements, find out what the issue might be, what could be causing the issue and develop a solution for that issue," said Tim Logan, a program coordinator at S&T. "If they can solve the problem, a Missouri manufacturer can keep operating and students get experience that will help them in their careers."
Another goal of the Protoplex is to help change the impression of manufacturing and what the jobs look like.
"We don't call it 'high-tech' manufacturing because that suggests a focus on the computer industry," Billo said. "Advanced manufacturing uses a lot of technology, but it's making physical things that are used in aerospace, mining and many other industries."
That could include using additive manufacturing, which is like 3-D printing but uses metal, to build a custom airplane wing, drill bit or repair for an engine casing.
Even the design of the building has a focus on generating interest and changing minds about manufacturing.
"The curve of the building, how it relates to the road, how it even relates to the bridge, it's designed to make people notice it, and wonder what's going on in there," said Jenifer Wilkins, project manager with Mackey Mitchell Architects.
The design inside is clean and modern — even the large open spaces where manufacturing and testing will take place.
"Manufacturing isn't the black-smeared grease all over people's faces sort of thing anymore," said Dan Schneider, an architect at Mackey Mitchell. "It's people wearing business casual stuff, doing all these experiments."
New business ventures are imbued with risk, and the Protoplex is no exception. Economic pressures, global trade situations and creating proof of viability of new products and systems are a challenge. But S&T has four partner companies already signed up and contracts for work with the U.S. Department of Defense.
And the workers in the building are on board with the mission.
"Here, you can make a one-off part in just a matter of a couple of weeks, so from design to testing, it can all happen here under one roof in less than a month," Solvus engineer Rhyneer said. "The theme of the Protoplex is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and I am a big proponent of that. I'm glad to be part of it."
That's exactly what economic development and civic leaders in Rolla want to hear: companies looking to invest in the region, high-paying jobs and employees who want to make the region their home for the long term.
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