Curt Manufacturing in Eau Claire makes metal ball hitches for trailers. Great White Dental Lab in Lodi fashions enamel teeth called “crowns.” Universal Die & Stampings in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, makes battery caps.

And K & B Innovations in North Lake creates “Shrinky Dinks,” which are little plastic thingys that kids can color and then shrink in the oven.

And somebody, somewhere in the Badger State builds the vats and forms, and the big stirring paddles and conveyor belts without which there’d be no Wisconsin cheese.

We don’t pay much attention when these companies win an award, add workers, or come out with a new product.

But taken together, they’re a big part of the nation’s economic engine that people are always talking about.