LA CROSSE, Wis. -- Good news today for Wisconsin's economy: The nation's manufacturing industry grew in January at its fastest pace since last summer. It’s welcome news for a state with one of the highest concentrations of manufacturing jobs in the country.

For Brennan Marine Inc. in La Crosse, which got a visit from Gov. Scott Walker today, any boost in the manufacturing industry means their business is looking up.

"The stars are aligning in that direction presently," said Brennan Marine COO Kent Pehler.

That's because the company transports manufacturing materials like steel and cement on its barges. So when orders for those bulk commodities go up, Brennan Marine's business feels a domino effect-- a bright spot in what has been a tough few years.

"Oh, we were hit very significantly. The commodities that we were discussing that we're seeing some uptick in demand-- I mean, we'd seen volumes decrease to levels that we had not seen in 10-15 years," said Pehler.

But now the company is looking to expand.

And with Governor Scott Walker in town visiting Brennan Marine, Pehler said he hopes the state will loosen up on regulations so it can grow even more.

"We need to have a business-friendly regulatory environment. That's it in a nutshell. The regulations on the local, state and national level do not indicate support for job growth," said Pehler.

Gov. Walker says they're on the same page when it comes to cutting down on regulations. In his State of the State address, he announced a new plan. A Small Business Advisory Council, which in the past looked at new regulations, is now going to be looking back at every Wisconsin regulation currently on the books and figuring out which ones are barriers to economic growth.

"This is just a barrier to adding more jobs. This is just a barrier to prosperity and economic development. And so we've empowered this group of small business leaders to help us identify those in the coming months and then we're going to move aggressively to change those so that we don't have antiquated and out of date regulations," said Gov. Walker.

Something else both Gov. Walker and Pehler agree on is the need to take a closer look at investing in our state's infrastructure.

The governor was visiting La Crosse today as part of his post-State of the State tour.