Centralia mat maker expands with new press and employees
MARK LAWTON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CENTRALIA -- Bryce Betteridge, president of SATECH in Chehalis, pulls a 2-foot by 3-foot black mat from the side of the conference room and lays it down on the floor directly in front of where he stands. "I would never do this on the floor," he said.He then drops, hard. His knees hit the mat, and it's difficult for a person watching not to wince. Betteridge, however, stands back up with no apparent pain and explains the technology behind the mat.
It is composed of a patented process called "smart cells" that look like little rubber tubes attached to each other and a flat surface. Two inches thick, it was developed in the 1980s in response to a decision by the Consumer Product Safety Council that playgrounds have fall-protection surfaces.
SATECH (short for Seamless Attenuating Technologies) was founded in 1991 as an offshoot of the company that developed the technology. The technology was good but too expensive to compete with the sand and sawdust the competition was selling. Instead, the new company decided to target sport surfaces, specifically basketball courts.
It built a prototype floor at an Edmonds school. Lenny Wilkins, former player and coach for the Seattle SuperSonics, got involved and invited teams to practice on it.
"They loved it," said Betteridge. "They could hardly tell they were playing on a level synthetic floor. It felt like wood, and the ball bounced like wood."
They presented the idea to several professional teams. The teams were interested, but two problems showed up. First, the manufacturing process took several months, which made it difficult to deliver the floor in the time frame desired. Second, the product was again too expensive, about $40 per square foot.
The company decided to retrench between 1998 and 2000.
By 2001, SATECH had come out with mats that were 1 inch thick that they call "anti-fatigue" matting.
"There is an erroneous notion that if standing on a hard surface is bad, standing on a soft surface is good," Betteridge said. "We found soft is not better."
SATECH became a partner of DECA Rubber, a manufacturer of custom rubber items such as valve stems, gaskets, caps for pipes and plumbing related products. In January, SATECH bought out DECA and now is sole owner of the property set back from Bishop Road in Chehalis. It is a quiet location, with the loudest noises being the neighing of horses in the pasture to the south and the slight hum of the Tractebel power plant.
Since purchasing the business, SATECH has invested an undisclosed amount of money in a new rubber press (about 18 feet high and weighing 200,000 pounds) that allows the company to produce 10 times what it produces now. It hired four more employees for a total of 17 and raised "several million" to further develop products. It continues to make specialty items, but its main focus is on the anti-fatigue mats.
It has also started selling mats to nursing homes to protect the elderly from hurting themselves in falls, specifically hip fractures.
Among the company's customers are Costco, Weyerhauser, Federal Reserve Bank, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories and Coca Cola. It also sells at the retail level through its Web site (www.satechinc.com).
Challenges for the business include the increasing price of crude oil and, perhaps more complicated, educating prospective consumers. "People have the perspective that this is just a mat," Betteridge said. "That softer is better. We have to educate them."