Our story began in 2001. Back then, we were a two-man operation making steel rule dies for the printing, packaging, and leather making industries in the Third Ward district of Milwaukee.
Our founder, Mark Jeske, had a simple vision, “to be the most innovative die shop in the country.” The business grew quickly, adding employees and customers. Mark’s tenacity and business acumen made SRD (Steel Rule Diemasters) the place to go for precision and perfection.
We quickly grew out of the small 1000 square foot facility in the Third Ward and moved in 2006 to a 5000 square foot facility in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Mark tackled projects other competitors wouldn’t and his “can do” attitude led him to the medical die making space. In 2009, he was presented an opportunity to create dies for biologic cutting, leading to our patented SterilCut® interlocking die base system that could be used in the clean room environment.
Mark understood this new biologic cutting system would need to be used with a clean room compatible press. In 2012, he financed and developed the first clean room compatible press to be used in conjunction with biologic cutting dies. He also created a new company called Medical Presses, Inc. to capitalize on this new burgeoning industry within bioscience.
Rendering of New Building
As we grew, Mark recognized the need for additional space for his growing businesses within the printing, packaging, leathermaking and now bioscience industries. In 2014, he purchased our current 14,000 square foot facility on Bradley Road in Milwaukee, bringing both of his companies under one roof and expanding our product offerings.
Mark’s vision evolved to focus on becoming the most innovative company within the bioscience industry. Sensing an opportunity within this market, Mark decided to change our company’s focus by combining the two companies under the name Biocut®Systems in 2016.
Marks knowledge, intense drive, and passion for innovation drove Biocut to create and develop other bioprocessing tools and to slowly discontinue making dies for the printing, packaging and leather making industry. At the end of 2017, Mark saw another opportunity to move Biocut® forward, he decided to sell to a private equity company, STUCK Fund. Mark died unexpectedly shortly after the sale, however, his vision for the company lives on.
STUCK Fund installed Don Melnikoff as the President of Biocut® Systems. Don brought his passion for developing teams and 20 years of knowledge as a Biomedical Engineer to continue Mark’s vision.
Evolution of Biocut®Systems
In early 2018, Biocut® completed the purchase of our press designer, KB Design & Manufacturing, located in North Carolina and moved the company to Milwaukee. Jared Koch, the owner of KB was installed as Vice President of Product Innovation at Biocut®.
Throughout 2018, we incorporated the STUCK Breakthrough Strategies, to help us accelerate our growth. STUCK Breakthrough Strategies is a business advising system based on proven business growth tools, processes, and strategies our board members used to grow their previous business into an international $100M organization.
This system focuses on the sustained growth of businesses through assessment, strategic planning, creation, deployment, and execution of a company’s Single-Page Plan. The plan focuses on all areas at Biocut® and has us set obtainable goals that are reviewed on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis to ensure that our team achieves the plan. The process includes keeping each other accountable, having tools in place to define “who is doing what, by when” and follow up actions to make sure we are consistently focusing on the right things that will keep Biocut® growing.
In 2019, we chose to go “all in” on the bioscience regenerative medicine market. We added talent to our engineering, manufacturing and sales departments, while upgrading our production and office environments. With this added talent and our strong relationships within the bioscience industry, we are growing sustainably and innovatively.
In 2021, we took our knowledge to the Pharmaceutical Industry, creating Xiogenix, a division of Biocut Systems.
Xiogenix is an innovator, manufacturer, supplier and production partner for the Pharmaceutical Industry. Specializing in process improvement and fluid handling, our engineers are able to help within the pharmaceutical process from discovery to commercial scale.
Jared Koch
