Steve Heat(ph) works for Vermeer, which makes construction and farm equipment in Pella, Iowa.
"I've struggled for 12 years to find the next Pella Corp. or Vermeer, " he says.
Armed with only a high-school diploma, Vermeer introduced the world's first large, round haybaler in 1971.
Like Case and Deere before it, Vermeer branched off from farm machines into construction machines.
Given the three-shift schedules at Pella Corp. and Vermeer, would employees have enough time to shop?
"We do this stuff for survival, " says Mary Andringa, Vermeer's co-chief executive and the founder's daughter.
O'Brien has four Derby leading contenders in St Nicholas Abbey, Jan Vermeer, Cape Blanco and Midas Touch.
His dishearteningly pedestrian world hardly bears comparison to the enchanted realms whose Prosperos are Rembrandt and Vermeer.
Most of the city's dozen or so factory ventilation stacks belong to either Pella Corp. or Vermeer.
Vermeer and Pella between them offer a combined 5, 500 nonunion jobs in a town where 7, 500 working-age adults live.
"Unions will tell you they can offer you better pay and benefits, " says Bruce Severson, production area manager at Vermeer.
Vermeer offers free doctor and nurse visits to workers and their families.
Vermeer's "Milkmaid" (c. 1660) is not shown beside an earthenware jug, nor is Rembrandt's "The Jewish Bride" (1667) hung beneath a wedding canopy.
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Their focus has shifted from catching the thieves to bringing home the precious artwork, which includes paintings by Rembrandt, Manet, Degas and Vermeer.
Among the the stolen items was a painting called "The Concert" by Johannes Vermeer, one of only 34 known paintings by the Dutch artist.
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While driving up their efficiency, Pella Corp. and Vermeer have effectively slammed the door on other sizable businesses that have tried to plant a foot.
"Most kids this age have no concept of perspective, " he said excitedly, holding up her picture of Bikini Bottom as if it were an original Vermeer.
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Dave Hickey, a maverick art historian and critic who lives in Las Vegas and who likes to provoke, compares Rockwell to Hogarth, Vermeer and Frans Hals.
Go back to that story about the salt mines, ' he said, referring to the Nazi repositories for the safekeeping of stolen treasures by the likes of Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer.
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Pella had an army of window plant workers after World War II, when farmer Gary Vermeer turned a modest invention--a modified farm wagon with a mechanical hoist--into a company in 1948.
Once again - at last - the world can experience the richness of the greatest art tradition ever produced by a tiny, sea-hemmed nation: from Vermeer to Van Gogh, Rembrandt to Mondrian.
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Elsewhere in the gallery, four perfect paintings by Vermeer, who defines perfection in art, share an alcove with exciting pictures by the more nonchalant Pieter de Hooch, his fellow citizen of Delft.
Before that they had known two centuries of splendid middle-class rule, when prosperous merchants in tall black hats had sent out ships to the far ends of Asia and, with the profits, sponsored De Hooch and Vermeer.
For now the 31-year-old plant manager is content to lord over a factory floor of Vermeer Manufacturing Co. in Pella, Iowa, pointing to a directional drill assembly line that used to be cluttered with 20 days' worth of parts inventory.
Intercut with Smith's journey are reflections on the rarity of paintings like Vermeer's The Concert, and the account of Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashberg 's possible sighting of one of the stolen works, Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of Gallilee, " in a Boston warehouse in 1997.
Unlike at the Metropolitan Museum or MoMA, where on an average busy day it becomes easy to hate the rest of the human race as you jockey with fellow art lovers for post position in front of a popular Vermeer or Picasso, at the Frick or Morgan you can often have a world-class El Greco or Ingres all to yourself.
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