Clarke Products Inc.

BVM: Has anything occurred recently, or is planned for the near future, that will impact the way the company operates? Clarke: “We have, in the last fewyears, particu- larly since the advent of the solid surface division, been doing a lot of project work around the country, particularly on the east coast and Mexico.And we are finding ourselves making unique, and usually a large number of products for projects.That en- try into the project-driven business has forced us to stretch ourselves beyond the regular products we make and to build some additional features to satisfy some unique demands from our custom- ers. Sometimes, it’s pretty frustrating, I must say, but, at the same time,we learn from the experience; we learn from the challenge.And we probably are doing things the rest of the people in this industry aren’t even thinking about doing.We have a head design engineer and a structural engineer on staff, so we’re able to engineer, design, and manufacture product that others cannot.We also use some in- dependent designers, off-staff, on a job-to-job basis, as needed. So,we have the ability to bring in some divergent viewpoints on products and projects. “We’re also waiting for the installation of a new robotic fiberglass chopping operation.We’ll be the first people in North America, to my knowledge, in our industry, to use a robotic application system. Now,we have people using a chopper gun. It’s like a paint gun–they spray on a mixture of resin and fillers at the same time, feeding fiberglass strands through a cutting device that sprays out the fiber