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ENLARGE
Sanding
As Jodine Standers looks for leaks, John Ode sands rough edges on half of a wastewater tank at Orenco Systems Inc. in Sutherlin. Orenco, which expects up to $40 million in sales in 2005, is expanding with construction of new and existing buildings.
SUTHERLIN -- People tend to be more interested in researching and buying a new car than a septic system.
Eric Ball, vice president of product development for Orenco Systems Inc., said he knows that. The products his company makes -- from fiberglass tanks to monitoring systems for wastewater industries -- can't be found in a Wal-Mart or other national retail stores.
They're made for properties and communities that are not connected to centralized sewers or otherwise require a nontraditional sewer setup. Orenco customers include the towns of Glide and Elkton, the Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort, the Roseburg Country Club and even an oil rig in Alaska.
In its specialized market, Orenco had $35 million in sales in 2004, up 25 percent from the year prior. Ball said he figures that number will be closer to $40 million in 2005.
It has reached that point after 24 years in business, though it didn't really begin selling its products until closer to 1986.
Owners Hal Ball, Eric's father, and partner Terry Bounds started the company working in basements and garages. Today, the company has 240 employees.
That number also figures to grow as the company completes a $1.2 million expansion on its just 1 1/2-year-old injection-molded fiberglass plant.
"When you look at it now, from when there was just a few of us in the garage, it's pretty dramatic," said Eric Ball, who, along with younger brother and Orenco general manager, Jeff, are the company's third and fourth owners.
The latest expansion, which began in the summer of 2004, also led to grant funding for Orenco. The company received about $34,000 from the Employer Workforce Training Fund allocated by the Douglas County Workforce Response Team and $42,000 from the Coos Curry Douglas Business Development Corp.
"There's a big work force training component in this whole thing," said Larry Andrew, assistant director of CCD.
The growth Orenco has experienced, both in sales, employees and buildings on its 23-acre campus, has been "manageable," Eric Ball said.
Being a self-funded, privately held company with no outside investors, the owners put Orenco's expansion in perspective. Hal Ball touted a recent "60 Minutes" piece about Google as a model for real expansion.
"We've never had the kind of growth that some of these online companies have had," Eric Ball said.
UNIQUE PRODUCT,
WORKFORCE
In Orenco's grant application to CCD, the company stated funds would go toward the training of 40 new employees. Those workers, after around one year of employment, would earn $13.67 an hour, a total with benefits figured in.
Those hires will happen steadily over the next two years. The company grew by about 30 employees last year.
In 2004, Orenco received a grant from Umpqua Community College to develop training curriculum and videos for new employees. The more recent grant packages will also go toward employee training.
On-the-job training has long been vital to Orenco's success because, simply, there aren't many other places to get it. The company has had to develop training materials on its own for products and technology it also created in-house.
"You can't go buy a book. You can't really go to college and learn resin transfer molding," Eric Ball said.
Even a standard municipal sanitary engineering degree won't put you on Orenco's employment radar, because it doesn't provide the training for what Orenco produces.
Eric Ball refers to Orenco's sewer technology as "a water system in reverse." With a conventional sewer system, like Roseburg's, when a toilet is flushed, all the waste flows by gravity through large-diameter pipes to a central treatment plant.
With Orenco's sewer technology, only the liquid portion of the waste is transported through small diameter PVC pipes to a smaller, simpler treatment plant. The solid waste stays in the Orenco tank.
If Orenco outfitted Roseburg and outlying areas with its equipment, Ball said Winchester, for example, would have its own treatment facility. All of Roseburg would be broken up into decentralized areas so waste wouldn't be pumping to one location from miles away.
Orenco has found loyal workers for its specialized industry. The company has a total of 1,030 years of experience among its staff, with some just starting out, but many with at least 15 years.
It's a relaxed atmosphere. The owners aren't in lavish offices, and none of the company's brass stroll through the hallways in a suit or tie.
"If you come here in the summer, half the people are wearing shorts," Ball said.
Most of the company's production workers are from Douglas County, Ball said. All four owners have engineering degrees, but employees with a high school education only have been promoted through Orenco's ranks.
The company has partnered with UCC to create management training courses and funded employees to take such classes through the college.
In the Midwest, where there's a large automotive industry, someone could switch jobs to Orenco fairly easily because the jobs would be similar, Ball said. Without that type of job pool locally, Orenco relies on training its own.
"When you look at a manufacturing company, we're way out of whack with tradition," Ball said.
NEXT MOVE
There's a United States map in Orenco's main office with little red flags denoting communities using the company's sewer systems.
Ball admits it's a bit outdated, but it still shows large clusters of flags throughout Western Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
The West Coast is Orenco's main market, but that is changing. There are already red flags on the map as far away as Florida.
"We fully expect to have another facility in the East, at some point," he said. "It's not going to be in two years, but at some point in the future, it's going to be."
Often, new sewer systems have to receive state and/or local approval because they aren't connected to the already existing sewer lines.
Such new regulations and ordinances are being adopted, making Orenco's technology more widely available around the country and world. The company has 100 distributors and dealers, including some in Canada, Europe and one recently acquired in Greece.
The majority of Orenco's business is in concrete tanks. Though, with the $1.2 million, 40-employee expansion to its fiberglass manufacturing plant, the expectation is obviously for that market to grow.
Sandra Huffstutter, Orenco's corporate communications manager, said at least part of the company's flagship products are produced in that building. One 1,500-gallon, injection-molded fiberglass tank is created every hour and usually sold outside of Oregon.
While Ball is already talking about expanding to the East Coast, there aren't any plans to leave Douglas County. The company was founded in Melrose and moved to Sutherlin in 1994.
It has received praise from local business organizations and legislators ever since. Bruce Hanna, state representative for District 7, held it up as a prime example of a thriving local business at last November's Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce Business Outlook Forum.
The 23-acre Sutherlin site has a total of 120,000 square feet of buildings. That will also grow as the administration building will have a 12,000-square-foot addition this year.
Orenco started a swing shift in June and a graveyard shift is another possibility.
"We think the next four years are going to be really big for us," Ball said.
* You can reach reporter Paul Craig at 957-4211 or by e-mail at pcraig@newsreview.info.
Eric Ball, vice president of product development for Orenco Systems Inc., said he knows that. The products his company makes -- from fiberglass tanks to monitoring systems for wastewater industries -- can't be found in a Wal-Mart or other national retail stores.
They're made for properties and communities that are not connected to centralized sewers or otherwise require a nontraditional sewer setup. Orenco customers include the towns of Glide and Elkton, the Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort, the Roseburg Country Club and even an oil rig in Alaska.
In its specialized market, Orenco had $35 million in sales in 2004, up 25 percent from the year prior. Ball said he figures that number will be closer to $40 million in 2005.
It has reached that point after 24 years in business, though it didn't really begin selling its products until closer to 1986.
Owners Hal Ball, Eric's father, and partner Terry Bounds started the company working in basements and garages. Today, the company has 240 employees.
That number also figures to grow as the company completes a $1.2 million expansion on its just 1 1/2-year-old injection-molded fiberglass plant.
"When you look at it now, from when there was just a few of us in the garage, it's pretty dramatic," said Eric Ball, who, along with younger brother and Orenco general manager, Jeff, are the company's third and fourth owners.
The latest expansion, which began in the summer of 2004, also led to grant funding for Orenco. The company received about $34,000 from the Employer Workforce Training Fund allocated by the Douglas County Workforce Response Team and $42,000 from the Coos Curry Douglas Business Development Corp.
"There's a big work force training component in this whole thing," said Larry Andrew, assistant director of CCD.
The growth Orenco has experienced, both in sales, employees and buildings on its 23-acre campus, has been "manageable," Eric Ball said.
Being a self-funded, privately held company with no outside investors, the owners put Orenco's expansion in perspective. Hal Ball touted a recent "60 Minutes" piece about Google as a model for real expansion.
"We've never had the kind of growth that some of these online companies have had," Eric Ball said.
UNIQUE PRODUCT,
WORKFORCE
In Orenco's grant application to CCD, the company stated funds would go toward the training of 40 new employees. Those workers, after around one year of employment, would earn $13.67 an hour, a total with benefits figured in.
Those hires will happen steadily over the next two years. The company grew by about 30 employees last year.
In 2004, Orenco received a grant from Umpqua Community College to develop training curriculum and videos for new employees. The more recent grant packages will also go toward employee training.
On-the-job training has long been vital to Orenco's success because, simply, there aren't many other places to get it. The company has had to develop training materials on its own for products and technology it also created in-house.
"You can't go buy a book. You can't really go to college and learn resin transfer molding," Eric Ball said.
Even a standard municipal sanitary engineering degree won't put you on Orenco's employment radar, because it doesn't provide the training for what Orenco produces.
Eric Ball refers to Orenco's sewer technology as "a water system in reverse." With a conventional sewer system, like Roseburg's, when a toilet is flushed, all the waste flows by gravity through large-diameter pipes to a central treatment plant.
With Orenco's sewer technology, only the liquid portion of the waste is transported through small diameter PVC pipes to a smaller, simpler treatment plant. The solid waste stays in the Orenco tank.
If Orenco outfitted Roseburg and outlying areas with its equipment, Ball said Winchester, for example, would have its own treatment facility. All of Roseburg would be broken up into decentralized areas so waste wouldn't be pumping to one location from miles away.
Orenco has found loyal workers for its specialized industry. The company has a total of 1,030 years of experience among its staff, with some just starting out, but many with at least 15 years.
It's a relaxed atmosphere. The owners aren't in lavish offices, and none of the company's brass stroll through the hallways in a suit or tie.
"If you come here in the summer, half the people are wearing shorts," Ball said.
Most of the company's production workers are from Douglas County, Ball said. All four owners have engineering degrees, but employees with a high school education only have been promoted through Orenco's ranks.
The company has partnered with UCC to create management training courses and funded employees to take such classes through the college.
In the Midwest, where there's a large automotive industry, someone could switch jobs to Orenco fairly easily because the jobs would be similar, Ball said. Without that type of job pool locally, Orenco relies on training its own.
"When you look at a manufacturing company, we're way out of whack with tradition," Ball said.
NEXT MOVE
There's a United States map in Orenco's main office with little red flags denoting communities using the company's sewer systems.
Ball admits it's a bit outdated, but it still shows large clusters of flags throughout Western Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
The West Coast is Orenco's main market, but that is changing. There are already red flags on the map as far away as Florida.
"We fully expect to have another facility in the East, at some point," he said. "It's not going to be in two years, but at some point in the future, it's going to be."
Often, new sewer systems have to receive state and/or local approval because they aren't connected to the already existing sewer lines.
Such new regulations and ordinances are being adopted, making Orenco's technology more widely available around the country and world. The company has 100 distributors and dealers, including some in Canada, Europe and one recently acquired in Greece.
The majority of Orenco's business is in concrete tanks. Though, with the $1.2 million, 40-employee expansion to its fiberglass manufacturing plant, the expectation is obviously for that market to grow.
Sandra Huffstutter, Orenco's corporate communications manager, said at least part of the company's flagship products are produced in that building. One 1,500-gallon, injection-molded fiberglass tank is created every hour and usually sold outside of Oregon.
While Ball is already talking about expanding to the East Coast, there aren't any plans to leave Douglas County. The company was founded in Melrose and moved to Sutherlin in 1994.
It has received praise from local business organizations and legislators ever since. Bruce Hanna, state representative for District 7, held it up as a prime example of a thriving local business at last November's Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce Business Outlook Forum.
The 23-acre Sutherlin site has a total of 120,000 square feet of buildings. That will also grow as the administration building will have a 12,000-square-foot addition this year.
Orenco started a swing shift in June and a graveyard shift is another possibility.
"We think the next four years are going to be really big for us," Ball said.
* You can reach reporter Paul Craig at 957-4211 or by e-mail at pcraig@newsreview.info.
