From cow feed additives and a device for distracted drivers to giant displays and, well a different kind of giant displays, these Roanoke-area companies are making their way far beyond the immediate market.
Note: The story below is an excerpt from our Jan./Feb. 2015 issue. For the full story download our FREE iOS app or view our digital edition for FREE today!
David Hungate
When Clay Skelton invented a device designed to keep drivers from texting, he turned to the Internet to find the parts and services he would need to build it.
“When you do Google searches, companies across the street don’t pop up,” Skelton says.
Derick Maggard, then the executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, referred Skelton to companies closer to home. “He just started connecting me with all these people, and I used them,” Skelton says.
Ultimately, the product, called ORIGOSafe, would be made almost entirely in the Roanoke area, with the exception of the keypad, which comes from Florida. Corrugated Container Corp., located across the street from Origo’s warehouse in Roanoke County, does the product’s packaging. PlasticsOne, on nearby Merriman Road, makes parts for the device, while Keltech, located near Plantation Road, produces the circuit boards.
“It’s just amazing what we have here in the valley,” Sketlon says
We agree. Here are profiles of five area companies that distribute products across the country and even across the globe.
American Biosystems: Converting CoW Chow to Milk and Meat
Location: Roanoke City, Luck Ave.
Product: Biotechnology
Lewis Goyette built his business by knowing what he was talking about.
He began the company in 1978 with an additive for animal feed, particularly for dairy cows. Lewis Goyette’s son Edward compares the product to a probiotic, a good bacteria which helps with digestion and is a popular supplement for humans.
“They are able to convert the food they eat to meat or milk more readily, so there is less waste,” Edward Goyette says of the company’s additive.
The late Lewis Goyette, who had a Ph.D. in microbiology, would get in his car and drive as far as New Hampshire singing the product’s praises.
“Some of those customers we still have today,” says Edward Goyette, now company president.
Folks in agriculture found Lewis Goyette so compelling they began inviting him to speak at agriculture conferences. “He ended up being a real authority on dairy cow nutrition,” Edward Goyette says of his father who died in 2011 at the age of 86.
Today, American Biosystems deals primarily with two products. Additives for animal feed and microorganisms for waste treatment in places like septic tanks and grease traps and in aquaculture. The products are used around the globe, according to Edward Goyette. He declines to name specific countries, but says he primarily ships to North and South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Lewis Goyette got his son interested in science on his sixth birthday by buying him a microscope. They took soil, mixed in some water and let it set for a few days before looking at it under a slide. “I could see all these amoebas and paramecium swimming around, and I was hooked,” Edward Goyette says.
After graduating with a degree in microbiology from Virginia Tech in 1978, Edward Goyette went to Northern Virginia for a job selling scientific instruments. Some of his colleagues came up with new products that he helped to introduce.
“I got a feeling for entrepreneurship, but really didn’t get to benefit from it,” he explains.
By 1989, Lewis Goyette was doing well enough with his business that he invited his son to come home to work with him.
Around that time, Lewis Goyette invested in another business and Edward Goyette found himself selling trash compactors in addition to biotechnology. That taught both Goyettes a valuable lesson: “Stick to what you know how to do,” Edward Goyette says.
“I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks,” he adds. “Once I started focusing on the agricultural and the waste treatment process, that started to grow and that’s what we do today.”
American Biosystems currently has three full-time employees. Goyette hopes to hire a couple more in the coming months. “We do well,” Goyette answers when asked about profitability.
Biotechnology is a competitive field, he admits. To combat that, American Biosystems’ strategy has been to sell in “places where other people didn’t want to go,” he explains.
“Places that aren’t necessarily the biggest market, but we have a chance to gain business there,” he says. “We have our little niches.”
4DD Studios: 8 Life-Size Rhinoceroses (Maybe)
Location: Roanoke City, Shenandoah Avenue
Product: sculptures, signs, exhibits
Clinton Hatcher claims to have the coolest small business in all of Roanoke.
Hatcher’s 4DD Studios creates custom three-dimensional sculptures ranging from a 40-foot-tall bowling pin to giant replicas of the Congressional Medal of Honor displayed at the Pentagon.
“People have an idea,” Hatcher explains. “They don’t have the means or expertise to produce it. That’s where we come in. We help make it a reality.”
As cool as he considers his business, Hatcher isn’t particularly eager for attention. You won’t find a sign outside his Shenandoah Avenue Northwest studio. He only reluctantly gave this interview. “We’re low profile,” he says. Over and over again, he says it.
Hatcher speaks excitedly about a custom piece made by 4DD Studios, only to then hedge.
“I probably can’t talk about that,” he says.
And so, we can only say the Showtime series “Homeland” may or may not have relied upon Hatcher and his team for a few large props when filming in Charlotte, N.C.
Bud Light staged an exorbitant marketing stunt in September reportedly shelling out $500,000 to rent the town of Crested Butte, Colo. for a giant weekend party. 4DD Studios may or may not have crafted eight life-size rhinoceroses as well as a brilliant blue Brontosaurus — all of which may have eventually ended up being “ridden” by tipsy party goers — for the event.
4DD Studios takes on less showy projects too. The company produces three-dimensional signs and builds pieces for companies, like, say, a 12-foot replica of a loafer.
“A lot of it is trade show stuff,” Hatcher explains. “You’ve got companies investing in something to get people to stop and talk to the people at the booth.”
The studios’ projects use technology like 3D laser scanning and computer-guided cutting machines and are made out of materials like foam, plastic and fiberglass.
Shops that compete with 4DD Studios are mostly located in Florida and California, near tourist attractions, according to Hatcher. The 58-year-old thinks working in Western Virginia gives him an edge — and the cheaper rent isn’t the only reason.
“I believe in the area,” Hatcher says. “There’s a great amount of talent here. It’s underutilized.”
Hatcher currently employs between five and six employees full-time. Over the years, his payroll has included sculptors, painters and industrial designers. Hatcher includes Mark Cline, the crafter of whimsy who gave us Natural Bridge’s Foamhenge, and Roanoke sand sculptor Alan Matsumoto among his occasional collaborators.
Hatcher describes himself as a fabricator and problem solver. In 2005, he sold a Smith Mountain Lake island he owned as well as his dock building business before settling in to think about what came next.
“I didn’t have enough money to retire,” Hatcher explains. “I spent a year thinking, ‘I’ve got to go back to work. What would be the coolest thing I can do?’”
He came up with 4DD Studios.
Keeping the business afloat has sometimes been a struggle. A fire seriously damaged 4DD Studio’s building in Southeast Roanoke in 2011, forcing Hatcher to start over. As this article goes to print, the company’s studio on Shenandoah Ave. has been sold and Hatcher is hunting for a new facility.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Everything we’ve got is on wheels.”
Sometimes, commissions get thin. Other times, employees are so swamped they work round the clock.
“We have slept on the floor,” Hatcher admits.
As for his bottom line, Hatcher says 4DD Studios is “barely” making enough money to stay open. “It’s taken a lot to keep it going,” he explains.
Still, he remains optimistic. “Now that we’ve been here for a while, we’re getting opportunities to look at some really cool stuff.”
TechLab: ‘No. 1 in the No 2 Business’
Location: Blacksburg and Radford
Product: Diagnostics for Intestinal Diseases
TechLab probably isn’t the right work environment for the prim and proper.
The New River Valley biotech company develops and manufactures diagnostics for intestinal diseases.
“There’s a lot of potty humor here,” admits TechLab president Charlie Pennington
At the company’s headquarters in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, a poster outlining diseases of the digestive system decorates a breakroom. The company puts out a newsletter titled Diarrhea Digest. The marketing manager hands out tiny toilets emblazoned with the slogan “No. 1 in the No. 2 business.”
For all the jokes, TechLab employees don’t consider their work a laughing matter.
“Everybody here takes their job seriously,” Pennington says. “Because we know that the products that go out the door could be used on a family member to find out what disease they have. . . What we do saves lives.”
TechLab formed in 1989; the company grew out of research led by Tracy Wilkins at Virginia Tech’s Anaerobe Laboratory on Clostridium Difficile, commonly known as C-Diff, a bacterium that causes diarrhea, intestinal inflammation and pain.
David Lyerly, co-owner of TechLab and vice president of research and development, says he and Wilkins (now largely retired) quickly discovered they’d found a niche all their own.
“We realized not too many people like to talk about the intestines,” Lyerly recalls. “Not too many folks care about diarrhea. We said, ‘Why don’t we jump into that and expand that too.’”
Today, the company’s bread and butter remains kits for hospital labs that aid in diagnosing C-Diff. TechLab also sells diagnostics for a variety of other troubles, like parasites or a toxin caused by eating contaminated water or food. Company executives are especially eager to get the word out about a newer product, which aids in the diagnosis of intestinal inflammation. That diagnosis can help doctors distinguish between irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease.
TechLab’s products are sold in 47 countries, according to Pennington. “A lot of the biggest growth opportunities are in the global market,” he says.
In 2011, the company expanded by turning a 54,000-square-foot shell building in Radford into a high-tech manufacturing facility. TechLab has 115 employees, split evenly between the Radford and Blacksburg locations, according to Pennington.
Many of TechLab’s employees come from Virginia Tech and Radford University.
“We like to use local talent,” Pennington says. “Not just employees, but also other companies.”
TechLab purchased robotics used in manufacturing from Blacksburg’s ESS Technologies, Inc., and relies on Roanoke’s Plastics One for a diagnostic component. Individuals with disabilities provide some labor through Goodwill Industries of the Valleys.
TechLab is now at an ideal size as far as employees, Pennington says, but he would like to see the company grow its product line.
That’s where research comes into the equation.
“We probably do a lot more in terms of understanding the science than other diagnostic companies do,” Lyerly says. “We enjoy the science . . . that’s the exciting part when you get to really figure out what’s going on and why.”
Origo: Stop That Drive-by Text!
Location: Roanoke County, Electric Road
Product: Distracted Driving Solution
As Clay Skelton headed to pick up the first prototype of an ignition interlock system he’d invented to combat distracted driving, the 53-year-old noticed the driver of a Range Rover behind him.
“I could see him in my rearview mirror texting,” Skelton says. “When we took off, he kept texting. I thought, ‘This fool is going to hit me.’”
Skelton tried to put some distance between his vehicle and the other, but another red light made that impossible. Bam! The driver of the Range Rover rear-ended him. Skelton’s Volkswagon Golf needed considerable repairs and Skelton had to have several weeks of physical therapy for whiplash.
“It was ironic,” Skelton says, with trademark dry wit.
The accident, Skelton says, left him hyper-aware of how much other humans use their smart phones. He hopes his product, called ORIGOSafe, will help protect humans from ourselves.
“It’s an addiction that affects everyone,” he says.
Skelton designed his system to be used by the commercial trucking industry. As he began marketing the product, though, he kept hearing from folks who wanted one for their teenager.
As the father of three teens, Skelton understood the concern. Origo now offers a stripped down version of the product sold to trucking companies for about $400 installed. To get the price that low, he says, the company’s profits have been cut to “almost nothing.”
A car that has the ORIGOSafe installed will not start unless a specified smart phone is placed into the dock. Drivers can not hold or look at their phone while the car is running, but they can use their phones with a Bluetooth device.
Origo, which launched in 2013, is still very much a small business. Employees put each unit together by hand at a tiny warehouse on Commonwealth Drive in Roanoke County. The company, which has five full-time employees plus a host of contractors, has a goal of selling 15,000 units in 2015.
Skelton has high hopes for what the company can do. He tells a story about a small Louisiana trucking fleet (he declines to name it) that had six accidents in one year at a cost of $300,000. A year after installing ORIGOSafe, according to Skelton, the company has had no accidents.
“If you want to draw the conclusion that texting was the cause of those accidents, you might logically do that,” he says.
Accidents will increase in number, Skelton believes, as younger teens, who grew up with smart phone technology, grow old enough to get their driver’s license and later take their places in the work force, some of them working behind the wheel.
“They’re sending snap chats of themselves driving to their friends,” Skelton says. “I think the problem itself is getting more and more dangerous every month.”
Corrugated Container Corp.: From Boxes to Graphics
Location: Roanoke County, Commonwealth Drive
Products: Displays, Packaging, Boxes
Roanoke’s Corrugated Container Corp. once counted on Southwest Virginia’s furniture manufacturers for about a third of its business.
“As you know all that went away,” says Dave Higginbotham, president of the company that founded in Roanoke in 1963. “All that furniture went to China.”
When it did, those companies no longer needed Corrugated Container Corp. to produce shipping boxes.
“Fortunately, we saw that coming,” Dave Higginbotham says.
Around 1985, Higginbotham and his four brothers, who ran the company together, decided to shift the company’s focus to creating high-quality graphics on boxes and for displays. The change meant purchasing $2 million in new equipment, according to Dave Higginbotham.
“We thought that would be a niche we could get into and it has served us well,” he says.
The philosophy differs from the big-box companies that deal mainly in high-volume sales.
“They don’t do a good job of graphics,” Dave Higginbotham explains. “They want to cut trees down and keep the paper mills going.”
Walk around the Southwest Roanoke County headquarters of Corrugated Container Corp. and tucked into most offices you can find colorful, free-standing and counter displays for companies like Wrangler, Burt’s Bees and Naked Grape.
“People don’t realize we do as much display and graphics work as we do,” says Higginbotham. “Displays we ship all over the country.”
Eventually, those displays end up in big-box retailers like Sam’s Club, Kmart and Home Depot. Their job, according to Peggy Underwood, graphic design manager for Corrugated Container Corp., is to attract a busy shopper’s eye over the many items on the shelves vying for attention.
“The graphics are designed to pull potential customers in,” she explains.
Corrugated Container Corp. makes a variety of other products in addition to the displays and retail packaging, including sales kits and shipping containers of every imaginable size and shape. In addition to Roanoke, the company has plants in Winchester, Piney Flats, Tennessee and Holly Springs, North Carolina, and boasts about 200 employees, with about 75 of those working out of Roanoke, according to Higginbotham. Roanoke employees work out of a 160,000-square-foot building that sits on 11 acres on Commonwealth Drive.
Corrugated Container’s business has grown about six percent in 2014, Higginbotham estimates. He has high hopes for the future, including a $6 million expansion for the Winchester plant and a $3 million expansion in Roanoke, which will include new equipment and a new 40,000 square foot warehouse that should be completed this spring.
The marriage between the corrugated industry and the Higginbotham family began with Dave Higginbotham’s grandfather who started installing corrugators following his service in the Navy during World War I. Dave’s father D.J. Higginbotham worked for box companies from Nebraska to Georgia before moving to Roanoke in 1955 to manage Miller Container Corporation on Old Hollins Road. D.J. and his wife Harriett opened Corrugated Construction Corp. in 1963.
Dave and his brother Ronnie started working for the family business shortly after graduating from Cave Spring High School in the mid-1960s. Brothers Jerry, John and Paul followed suit after they finished college. D.J. Higginbotham retired from Corrugated Container Corp. in 1974, Dave Higginbotham says, to give his sons room to run the company.
“He said, ‘All right, I’ll let you and Ronnie run the business. If you’re still here in a year, just keep on running it,’” Dave Higginbotham recalls.
Dave Higginbotham attributes the company’s success to the fact that each brother found his own niche in the company. Ronnie oversees maintenance, Jerry looks after manufacturing, John is in charge of sales, a role brother Paul performed before retiring in 2008.
“We don’t really have any major disagreements,” Dave Higginbotham says of working with his siblings. “We’ve always kind of worked through consensus. We beat on each other until we all agree.”
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