When Jon Smalley founded SmaK Plastics in 2007, he wasn’t quite sure where the field of rotational molding would take his young company.
After leaving a similar company in Ridgefield and launching SmaK, he found his first market in producing aftermarket products for snowmobiles. But the business quickly grew and expanded to cover a wide array of other items, including custom panels and wine tanks — and that growth has continued. So much so that this spring, the company finished a $1 million expansion from its initial 25,000-square-foot operation to 70,000 square feet. SmaK has hired 30 new workers and added a host of new equipment.
“We’ve had good growth every year,” said Smalley, who is the company’s owner and president. “We tried to get this expansion done four years ago, actually, because the space was very tight, but the timing wasn’t right. We had a lot of outside storage space, and the new space has really helped out. Now we just need to grow into the new space.”
Rotational molding is a technology that uses custom molds in a large spinning apparatus to form shapes. A plastic resin is injected, and the spinning action fills the mold and causes excess plastic to get sucked to the edges of the mold.
Some of the other items the company makes are material handling bins, hoppers, coolers, electric pedestals and carpet cleaning equipment.
“We have under our business umbrella a number of different products,” said Kristi Blaver, the company’s marketing director. “We’re fortunate to be in some pretty big markets. And there’s demand from several different sectors.”
The $1 million expansion nearly tripled SmaK’s floor space and let the company add another large piece of manufacturing equipment. As part of that, the company added five new shipping bays and more office space. The expanded floor also has room for three more rotational molding machines.
In planning for the restructuring, SmaK also acquired Columbia Manufacturing and Flextank USA Wine Tanks in 2018. And earlier this year it consolidated a shipping operation that was in Idaho back to Vancouver.
At the end of fiscal 2018, the company closed $13 million in gross sales, Smalley said.
“This year’s not looking too bad either,” Smalley said. “We’ll probably be fairly stable but flat this year as we absorb the restructuring, and then we’ll be up again next year.”
SmaK hired the 30 additional employees this year to meet expanded demand, bringing the company total to 50.
Smalley began his career in robotics at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory after graduating with a masters degree in engineering. After 10 years he decided to move into the business sector and get out of government work, which led him into rotational molding.
“It’s the complete opposite of robotics and control system design,” Smalley said. “At the time it was something different, and I wanted to try something in the private sector.”
The attractive thing about rotational molding is that it can be creative and challenging to build custom pieces that customers need.
“The problem-solving and the variety of things we can make has made this career a lot of fun,” Smalley said.
One of the stranger things the company made over the years was a 6-foot-tall goal for a game another company was putting together. SmaK made two of the 6-foot-tall saucers with holes in the middle for a ball or flying disc to pass through.
“That was an interesting one,” Smalley said. “It was not something I would have thought of.”
Markets for the company remain stable, and even if a recession hits in 2020, SmaK is in a good position to weather it, he said.
After SmaK finishes absorbing the restructuring and expansion, Smalley said he will probably consider going after another market in the United States, perhaps in the Midwest, while still keeping his Pacific Northwest operations in Vancouver.
“We’re looking at a bunch of states, and they’re all offering benefits and incentives,” he said.
