GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Stiles Machinery hosted Wayde King and Brett Raymer of Acrylic Tank Manufacturing and stars of Animal Planet’s reality television series TANKED, at their corporate headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan today.

The cast and crew filmed scenes for an episode featuring Stiles Machinery, and took time for media interviews as well as meet and greets with Stiles employees and family. Stiles is using their relationship with Acrylic Tank Manufacturing to build, donate and install a 12 foot fish tank at Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center showcasing the Grand Rapids skyline.

“We were looking for more efficient manufacturing processes to get our aquarium projects completed and Stiles had everything we needed,” explained Wayde King regarding their two year partnership with Stiles Machinery. Acrylic Tank Manufacturing uses a Weeke Vantech 510 CNC Router from Stiles, as well as a Holzma HPP 410 panel saw and an Altendorf F45 sliding table saw to build their elaborate aquarium projects as seen on the show.

Filming for the upcoming episode included a tank installation in the lobby at Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center located downtown Grand Rapids. “Grand Rapids offers some of the world’s best research institutions and medical programs and the people at Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center are doing wonderful things to heal our community,” explains Chris Dolbow, marketing manager at Stiles Machinery. “This donation supports our community and an excellent organization focused on making Grand Rapids a better place to live.”

“This tank melds perfectly with our mission of healing mind, body and spirit,” explains Kenda Klotz, clinical service director of Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center. “Its addition to our lobby enhances our efforts of creating a soothing environment where family and patients can find respite and a bit of peace while dealing with the stress of illness.”

Acrylic Tank Manufacturing and Stiles Machinery will reveal the tank at Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center’s annual “Up on the Roof” fundraiser event, this Thursday night at 6:30 p.m., September 11th. The episode, featuring Stiles Machinery and Mercy Health Lacks Cancer Center is slated to air on the Animal Planet network November 28th, 2014. All media are welcome to attend, but must coordinate with Katie Halloran, 616.260.5101 or [email protected].

About Stiles: Stiles has been helping manufacturers succeed for more than 45 years. Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich., Stiles is the largest supplier of best in class technology for manufacturing companies of all sizes. Through equipment integration, financial services, education, service and parts, Stiles offers Total Production Solutions. Stiles also has regional offices in High Point, NC; Coppell, Texas; and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Visit Stiles at www.stilesmachinery.com

About Mercy Health: A multi-campus health care system dedicated to providing highly personalized care, excellent access to primary care providers and specialists and a more informed patient experience, Mercy Health serves West Michigan and the lakeshore with five hospital campuses and 60 physician offices and is a member of CHE Trinity Health. Visit us at www.MercyHealth.com.

About Acrylic Tank Manufacturing: As co-owners of Las Vegas-based Acrylic Tank Manufacturing (ATM), one of the country's most successful builders of aquariums and two of Sin City's most imaginative businessmen, Wayde and Brett are tasked with building some of the most enormous and awe-inspiring tanks and aquariums for top celebrities, luxury hotels and casinos, Fortune 500 businesses, private homes and millionaire homeowners across the country that are filled with the most exotic, unusual, colorful and dangerous fish in the world. ATM takes on more than 200 projects every year with tanks ranging from 50 to one million gallons in size.

TANKED is produced for Animal Planet by Nancy Glass Productions. Nancy Glass, Eric Neuhaus and Matt Carter are the executive producers for Nancy Glass Productions, and Melinda Toporoff is the executive producer and Pat Dempsey is Associate Producer for Animal Planet. TANKED was developed by Animal Planet's Charlie Foley.

About Animal Planet: Animal Planet, a multi-media business unit of Discovery Communications, is the world's only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and enrichment. Animal Planet consists of the Animal Planet television network, available in more than 94 million homes in the US; online assets www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things animal; Animal Planet L!VE, the go-to digital destination for round-the-clock, unfiltered access to the animal kingdom; and other media platforms including a robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service, and merchandising extensions.