Viracon thrilled to showcase glass at Super Bowl home

The pride of Steele County will be proudly displayed at U.S. Bank Stadium as football fans from the entire country converge on Minnesota for the Super Bowl.
U.S. Bank Stadium is an epicenter of Minnesota pride. That pride is showcased with 180,000 square feet of glass all produced in Owatonna by Viracon. 
“Any time a great stadium gets additional publicity from a big event like that, it boosts the company,” said Seth Madole, director of sales and operations for Viracon. “It’s awesome to be a part of it.”
Viracon, Madole said, provided U.S. Bank Stadium with 9,000 insulated unit windows. About 300 windows were transported from Viracon’s Owatonna facility to the new stadium each week for about 20 weeks back in 2016. 
And providing the glass came with its challenges.
“The most challenging portion of the project was helping the architects accomplish their vision for a stadium that invites you in,” Madole explained. He said it was also challenging to manage the needed performance of the glass to tolerate the temperature extremes in Minnesota. It can swing from 100 degrees in August to -30 in January. 
While the U.S. Bank Stadium project was a big one for Viracon, Madole says it proved to be just another day in the life of the glass manufacturer. He said there are as many as 300 projects of the Vikings scale going through Viracon at any one time.
To put it in perspective, Madole said even though the Vikings project was spread out over a 20-week period, the glass could be manufactured and completed in less than two days. He said the stadium builders wanted the glass in a certain sequence, which is why it was spread out over a longer period.
Madole said the upcoming Super Bowl is “awesome for local morale” at Viracon. A number of employees are volunteering at the Super Bowl. 
Amongst the Viracon employees are some Packer fans. “We didn’t let them work on the glass. We were worried about them,” Madole said with a chuckle. 
The home of this year’s Super Bowl is impressive by many accounts, and Madole is certain it will dazzle visitors. “It’s awesome to have the ability to have an enclosed climate-controlled stadium with a feeling of being outside,” he said. He added there is a high percentage of visible light throughout the stadium making fans forget that they’re actually indoors. 
“Absent of the glass, they did a great job with the acoustics,” Madole said. 
He is glad that many Owatonna fans got a chance to see the stadium last fall when the Owatonna Huskies captured the state football championship. 
Viracon is involved with some other NFL projects. One of them is the new Las Vegas Raiders Stadium. Madole said Viracon will be supplying all the glass for the stadium within the next 12 months. 
“We do a lot of stadium projects around the country,” Madole said. 
But chances are U.S. Bank Stadium will hold the most pride for Viracon employees, and the rest of Minnesota for years to come.

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