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A blended industry |
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Monday, 08 October 2007 |
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Page 2 of 3
Flexibility and freedom
The SCRA’s mission is to foster the development of high-knowledge industries and get them embedded in the communities surrounding Clemson, Noisette and the University of South Carolina, among others.
“With composites, you get both micro and macro ventures. An example of the latter would be Kohler and Sherwin Williams, who are working within the framework of the Noisette Urban Alliance to develop nontoxic, totally sustainable products,” Mahoney said.
“But there are also scores of smaller ventures coming into the market, and coming for a simple reason—smart people like to cluster around other smart people, and the smart money is beginning to take South Carolina very seriously.”
Gordon Brown, who founded Flexi-Stix LLC in Anderson before getting into consulting businesses in the composites sector, said he became a startup entrepreneur after some 35 years in the industry.
As the name of his company implies, Brown’s product was a composite-based variation on the traditional exercise bar. He has since licensed the technology for which he holds a patent to Body Bar Systems in Colorado.
“I think what makes composites intriguing to companies here is that they offer so much flexibility and freedom. I think this is particularly true of those that were active in the textile industry and saw what could happen if you were locked into one product or resource,” Brown said. “With composites, by simply changing a resin or a fiber, you can create a whole new product.”
Brown is currently working with a company that is using ballistic-resistant fibers to create a new generation of fiberglass window screening, he said. Another company, Tech-Fab LLC in Anderson, is using carbon fiber and an epoxy resin to create composite grids that can be used in place of wire mesh by the pre-cast concrete industry.
“Believe it or not, South Carolina is just full of state-of-the-art composite companies,” Brown said. “AGY, in Aiken, is making high performance materials for the automotive, construction and other industries out of glass fiber yarns, General Electric is building MRI machines out of composites in Florence, and MacLean Power System, in Newberry, is a leading manufacturer of products for the utility industry, including the cross bars on utility poles.”
Another player in composites is CoMar Products Inc. in Cayce, which produces “cultured” marble products for the kitchen and bath.
The company was established in 1965 by Harvey Wise Sr., after the craftsman, who had been fashioning tubs out of marble slabs, got a request from a customer for a marble tub that was all in one piece.
Wise learned that a New Orleans company was making such tubs out of a synthetic material made to look like marble, but he found their standard, cookie-cutter design lacking.
Trading a pickup truck for his first mold, he started the business in the carport of the family’s home, before moving into an 18,000-square-foot shop.
“When my father started making cultured marble, we were basically seen as a stepchild of the fiberglass industry,” said Wise’s daughter, Deborah L. Cannon. “Today, thanks to vast improvements in the formulation of resins, our business, and our niche in the industry as a whole, continues to expand.”
Cannon said one factor driving the growth of the industry in the South Carolina is a recognition among lawmakers that the age of traditional textile manufacturing is largely over in the state.
“The Department of Commerce, other agencies, really work with you because they want to see another viable industry take root here,” she said. “At the same time, we have an excellent technical college system providing the kinds of workers we need in what is a still very labor-intensive industry.”
While Cannon concedes that there’s been a slight slowdown in her business as a result of the recent ripples in the economy, she said another attribute of South Carolina—the diverse makeup of its population centers—has helped ward off any real decline.
The state’s historically sound sports and recreation industry has also been good for the growth of composites manufacturing in the state.
At last count, according to the ACMA, South Carolina was home to at least 10 composite boat manufacturers, including Scout Boats in Summerville, Sea Fox Boats in Moncks Corner, Sea-Hunt Boat Manufacturing in Lexington, Stingray Powerboats in Hartsville and Fast Craft Boats LLC in Georgetown.
“When it comes to economic development here in South Carolina, you often hear that climate is a critical factor in business decisions and I think that’s particularly true in the world of composites,” said Steve Potts, who founded Scout Boats in Summerville in 1990.
“When you work with polyester resins, as we do, climate is a critical factor. Colder temperatures inhibit the curing of the resins and its being too warm can create problems too. Keeping temperatures in our facility at a fairly constant 77 degrees, the industry standard, is an expensive proposition, but it’s a lot less expensive here in South Carolina than it would be in more extreme climates, like that in the Northeast.”
Potts is heartened by, and fully supports, the effort to create a more unified composites cluster in the state.
“This is something that North Carolina does very well, according to my contacts in the boating industry there, and I think, if we can get the same sense of a cluster here, we all would benefit from the shared knowledge of new techniques and other things that would make us more competitive.”
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