In July 2001, Eric Ruff was a member of the Commission for Economic Development of Orem when Mark and Natasha Hixon presented an idea for a portable scrapbooking tool that used thin steel cutting dies to make die cuts on demand.

Ruff was impressed with the idea. Very impressed. He was so impressed, in fact, that three days later this longtime entrepreneur joined the Hixons to found Orem-based QuicKutz, a maker of products for scrapbooking and other crafts.

QuicKutz's product is the first use in the consumer market of chemically etched dies, an industrial process that, Ruff soon learned, was too expensive to keep QuicKutz in business if it tried to work with existing domestic suppliers.

So Ruff and his team gave up the idea of overseas manufacturing. Instead, QuicKutz's leaders built their own plant.

Within a year, the plant was making its first dies. Within two years, the plant was running smoothly and with costs lower than those of U.S. or Asian suppliers.

QuicKutz has enhanced its position with products like sets that turn die cuts into stamps, special-edition packages and both electronic and hand-held die-cutting tools.