LARAMIE — For decades, American companies chased cheap overseas labor, hollowing out domestic manufacturing in the process.
Today, a massive wave of “reshoring” has companies aiming to return their operations to U.S. soil.
According to the nonprofit Reshoring Initiative, announcements of reshoring and foreign direct investment projects are projected to account for roughly 309,000 manufacturing jobs in 2026 as corporate leaders prioritize supply-chain resilience.
But wanting to return to the United States and actually pulling it off are two different things.
In a separate 2026 survey, the Reshoring Initiative found that 57% of original equipment manufacturers identified policy uncertainty as their primary challenge. Other hurdles include import-price competition and shortages of skilled workers.
Put simply, they want to come home, but connecting all the dots is a much bigger job than they can handle.
Wyoming is famous for exporting coal, oil, and trona, but its newest high-value export might just be the data that can solve this national bottleneck.
Christian Bitzas, former CEO and co-founder of Uplink Robotics, a Laramie startup that manufactures robotic inspection devices, has created a cutting-edge supply chain intelligence platform that’s already helped some companies navigate reshoring problems.
Cutting Through SEO Static
Bitzas told Cowboy State Daily he started this company because he was all too familiar with the problems from his own experience navigating domestic supply chains for Uplink.
“There’s a huge issue out there of not knowing who does what in your region,” Bitzas said. “So it’s not just Wyoming, it’s the entire U.S. And with the new administration, with their whole effort of reshoring manufacturing, it’s difficult, because you really don’t know who’s here and what they do.
"And all the sources out there are all either stale, outdated or incomplete.”
Fragmented data cuts across many different sources, Bitzas added. And traditional Google and ChatGPT searches won’t cut through all the static.
“I like to say it’s gamed because of something called SEO,” Bitzas said. “So only certain companies will show at the top.”
SEO is search engine optimization. Some companies are exceptional at it, but that doesn’t mean companies who aren’t as good at it don’t have something valuable to offer.
“So, EcosAtlas pulls from more than 100 different datasets all across the U.S.,” Bitzas said. “And it gets information from all these different datasets for individual businesses and from federal sources too.”
Bitzas’ platform helps surface companies that have successful government contracts or that have undergone OSHA inspections or have other indicators of quality, regardless of SEO.
The platform Bitzas has created is also more up-to-date than all the other databases and tools Bitzas was using when he was trying to solve supply-chain issues for Uplink.
“I have automatic algorithms and AI agents going out and getting up-to-date data as it updates and bringing it all in,” Bitzas said. “So, as a company starts up, you can see them start up and track as they add services, change locations, and things like that.”
Wyoming Litmus Test
Eric Carman-Murray, Manufacturing Works’ southwest Wyoming regional director, is among those who are helping pilot Bitzas’ platform in Wyoming. He has already used it to help a pesticide company look at returning some production to his corner of the state.
The company’s issue wasn’t with physical goods in its supply chain, but with services, demonstrating the flexibility of Bitzas’ invention.
“Wyoming has some specific insurance insolvency rules that they wanted to make sure they had addressed,” Carman-Murray said. “In most cases, this is kind of outside our lane at Manufacturing Works because researching specific insurance companies probably isn’t going to get us very far.”
But with EcosAtlas, Carman-Murray was able to query the platform much the way one would any other artificial-intelligence agent and put together a workable list of other companies that had already solved such questions in Wyoming.
“That way they were able to get all their questions answered,” Carman-Murray said.
Pesticide manufacturers are one sector looking to do more manufacturing at home, he added.
“But it’s got to make sense,” he said. “So by using this tool, we’re able to connect them with other people who are addressing some of these problems that might have cost them more money and time to get answered.”
Helps Existing Manufacturers
Carman-Murray isn’t just using the platform for companies that want to reshore, though. He’s also using it to help startups and established businesses that want to try something new.
“It’s a great connection tool to understand and help expose those whose capabilities would otherwise remain invisible,” he said. “And for those who are wanting to explore Wyoming as a potential new home, this gives them a great read on what already exists.”
Carman-Murray said he believes it’s going to be an invaluable tool for the state to continue building its manufacturing sectors.
“It’s not AI software, but there’s an AI component in it that’s really great,” he said. “It helps organize and maintain a huge amount of the fragmented business information out there, so a person can actually ask useful questions.”
That makes it user-friendly for those who might not be software programmers.
“You can just ask it a flat-out question and it helps, at least me in my job, find real possibilities,” he said. “I still have to evaluate those possibilities and the companies and the different connections as to whether it actually makes sense. But it gives me the information in a more useful way very quickly.”
Planning To Go National
Bitzas is not just developing the platform for the Cowboy State. He’s also looking at ways to take its reach national.
In addition to the pilot in Wyoming, Bitzas is also doing a paid pilot in Idaho with an organization similar to Manufacturing Works.
“And then I’m hoping to start commercializing it much further soon,” he said. “I’m also talking to a few other organizations throughout Wyoming for different purposes. Because while it can be used for supply chain specifically for manufacturers, there’s also a lot of economic-development opportunity for it to help businesses grow in Wyoming.”
The software can also show where there is leakage, meaning businesses and agencies are paying outside vendors for something that could be provided in-state.
“So all that money is going out of state when it could be staying here,” Bitzas said.
Keeping that money home means more jobs for Wyoming, he added.
“So we’re exploring all those different options,” he said.
One Way To Fight ‘Brain Drain’
Taking the platform national is Bitzas’ ultimate business goal, but the soul of the Powell native’s project remains deeply rooted in the state that raised him.
Like many young Wyoming engineers, Bitzas is one of those who faced the state’s notorious “brain drain” firsthand after graduation. Despite a résumé that boasted internships with NASA and aerospace giant Raytheon, suitable local opportunities were virtually nonexistent.
“I couldn’t find another job in Wyoming,” he said. “So I accepted a full-time position in Tucson. But then I ended up starting my first company, which was the only opportunity for me at the time to stay here in Wyoming. So I resigned from my full-time offer in Tucson to kind of gamble and stay here.”
The gamble — Uplink Robotics — paid off, but the struggle to find local suppliers and business mentors stuck with him. It inspired him to build WyoHub, a free, interactive resource map for local entrepreneurs.
He soon realized that keeping the resource map updated would be its Achilles’ heel, which gave him the idea for EcosAtlas.
Ultimately, Bitzas hopes his platform will be part of the solution for Wyoming graduates who don’t want to pack their bags for places like Arizona or Silicon Valley just to use their degrees.
By mapping the state’s hidden industrial capabilities, he’s building the infrastructure that can help keep Wyoming’s brightest minds — and their paychecks — at home.
“There’s a lot of opportunity,” Bitzas said. “I’m really excited for the future and how this can make an impact on Wyoming.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
