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SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker announced the sixth annual winner of the “Makers Madness” contest Wednesday in Springfield.
Chosen in a bracket-style competition from a field of more than 250 products, MTH Pumps’ aerial firefighting helicopter refill pump is the 2025 “Coolest Thing Made in Illinois.” This specific pump was designed to cut the refill time of water tanks used on helicopters to fight fires in half, taking as little as 30 seconds to refill.
The contest is organized annually by the Illinois Manufacturers Association, a trade group that lobbies lawmakers in Springfield.
The product was used by fire departments in California to fight wildfires in January. Tim Tremain, president of MTH Pumps in Plano, said the Los Angeles Fire Department praised the pump, calling it, “very consistent, very helpful and very reliable out in the field.”
“For generations, Illinois has been a place where things get made,” Pritzker said. “From John Deere and the first steel plow in Grand de Tour to Josephine Cochran and the first dishwasher in Shelbyville to Martin Cooper and the first cell phone in Schaumburg. So much of the world as we know it right now was made here in Illinois.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.