Revchem Composites

REVCHEM COMPOSITES sold two pails of black Gel Coat. In 1976, Revchem opened Dura Technologies, Inc., a producer of exceptional surface coatings for high performance composites, thus expand- ing both companies’ reach to newmarkets in the specialty products marketplace.Today, Revchem is still a family business,with six locations along the U.S.west coast, a fleet of trucks, and more than 100 orders processed every day. Recently, Business View Magazine spoke with the President of Revchem Composites, Pete Pendleton, about his company’s success to date, and what the future holds for Revchem and the composites industry as a whole.The following is an edited transcript of that con- versation: BVM: What was the vision when Revchem was founded? Pendleton: “In the 1970s, composites were essentially fiberglass products and supplies; an economical, efficient way to manufacture very intricate shapes that you couldn’t do back then with steel or aluminum or wood. The Chevrolet Corvette is a testament to that, built from fiberglass to be lighter, stronger, faster. Doug Dennis had a vision that the composites industry was going to escalate in demand and popularity, so he started Revchem Composites as a supplier to composites manufacturers for boats, tub showers, airplanes, motorcycle fairings, surfboards, and general fabrication. “From the first location in Costa Mesa, it grew to Anaheim, and then they built facilities in Bloomington, California, where we’ve been since 1991. Revchem is purely a distribution company.We buy materials from different composite manufacturers – resin companies, reinforcements, core materials, etc., and we dis- tribute them to the industry, so people can build their products. Also located at the Blooming- ton site is our Dura Technologies company that blends base resins and epoxies into ready-to-use products.We manufacture gel coats and coatings for the composites industry there and Revchem distributes them, in addition to products we buy from others.” BVM: Can you give us an overview of pres- ent-day operations? Pendleton: “We currently have about 100 em- ployees, and distribution centers in Costa Mesa, San Fernando, Stockton (northern California), and two in the Pacific northwest.We’re actually merg- ing those facilities in Tualatin, Oregon and Taco- ma,Washington into one large distribution center in Tumwater,Washington to service both markets. That project is in progress and should be finished by the end of summer 2018. So, every day we’ll be going north from Tumwater into the Greater Taco- ma and Seattle markets, and south to composite manufacturers in the Greater Portland markets. “Ninety-five percent of our product is delivered on our company-owned, semi-trailer trucks.We are strictly a west coast distributor, servicing all of southern and northern California, Las Vegas, northern Nevada, Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and the general Portland and Seattle-Tacoma geographic areas.We also do a bit of export to specialty places, and ship to some businesses that manufacture in Mexico and have a U.S. presence. Or we take it to the border and they use a cus- toms agent and broker to get it across.” BVM: Who are your typical customers? Pendleton: “One thing that really helps our sta-