Growth fuel

Wessel van Tonder has good news for American manufacturers.

“It still means something if it's made in the U.S.A.,” says van Tonder, a South African oil executive who led a buyout of Fort Myers-based AXI International in 2012.

That's one of the reasons the manufacturer of fuel-management systems has been growing rapidly in Fort Myers. Van Tonder says he could have cut costs and moved the company to a cheaper overseas location, but the value of the firm's “Made in America” reputation was more valuable. “Our company has an extremely good name,” he says.