Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 18, 1995 TAG: 9510180027
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Rubatex plant in Bedford has changed hands a half-dozen times since it was built in 1924 but has survived over the years on the strength of its products and its work force.
This week, new owners again are in charge, bringing with them the promise of company growth.
The sale of RBX Holdings Inc., the parent of Rubatex Corp., which operates the Bedford plant, was made final Monday, RBX reported Tuesday. Both parent companies have corporate offices at Valleypointe in Roanoke.
RBX announced in August that the company was being sold by its owner, AEA Investors of New York, to American Industrial Partners of San Francisco and New York. AIP, like AEA, is an investment firm but one whose investors, such as former Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Chairman Thomas Barrett, have a background in the rubber business. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
AIP has indicated that it wants to grow Rubatex's foam-rubber business both through expansions and acquisitions, Frank Roland, Rubatex's president and chief operating officer, said in an earlier interview. RBX will be looking for situations that will allow Rubatex to increase its product line, Roland said.
As with the acquisition in January of the Halstead Corp., a N.C.-based maker of foam rubber, Rubatex will be looking for situations where it can cut its costs by combining companies, said Roland, who came to the company from Halstead. "The larger we grow, the more clout we have with our major suppliers," he said.
AEA's sale of Rubatex was not a surprise, RBX executives said, because that's the way an investment company such as AEA recovers its investment. To most Rubatex employees, the change this week of ownership will be unnoticed, Roland said.
Rubatex's Bedford plant was built in 1924 by the Bedford Tire and Rubber Co. It made tires until 1929, when the plant was closed. It re-opened in 1935 when Rubatex Products Inc. of Baltimore moved its operations to Bedford. A year later the ownership changed hands, and the company became Virginia Rubatex Corp. The company changed owners twice more before becoming privately owned in 1985.
Rubatex produces foam rubber from synthetic rubber, vinyl and plastics by a process first developed in Germany more than 80 years ago. The product, which comes in varying grades of softness, has a structure composed of millions of tiny, nitrogen-filled closed cells. The materials can be used for purposes such as sealing, gasketing, cushioning, sound deadening and packaging. Finished products that are made from Rubatex foam rubber include shoe soles, computer mouse pads, pipe insulation, life vests, football helmet liners and drink-can holders.
Most of those products are manufactured by other companies supplied by Rubatex. One exception is automotive gaskets and seals that Rubatex stamps out at its Bedford plant.
One of the strengths of Rubatex is the diversity of products that are made from its rubber, said Michael Hayduk, director of human resources at the Bedford plant. "We don't go into these tailspins and crash ... like a lot of industries do," he said.
The company, because it is privately owned, does not discuss its sales or profits, said Jerry Kirshke, a company vice president. He said the company is the world's largest maker of closed-cell foam rubber. Armstrong World Industries and M.A. Hannah Co. are Rubatex's major competitors; but because Rubatex is so diverse, no one company competes with it across all product lines, Roland said.
Besides the plant in Bedford, Rubatex operates factories in Conover, N.C., and Colt, Ark., that it acquired from Halstead this year. The company also operates six warehouses and has 30 salespeople scattered across the country. The company does little export business, Roland said, partly because of the high cost of shipping the lightweight goods.
Rubatex employs 1,500 of the 2,400 people who work for RBX. Besides Rubatex, RBX has a half-dozen subsidiaries involved in some aspect of the rubber or plastics business, including Olatex of Chicago, which makes polyethylene netting, and Groendyk of Buchanan, a maker of rubber and silicone seals and gaskets.
Besides the foam rubber plant in Bedford, Rubatex operates a division there that makes adhesives and a subsidiary, Bondtex Inc., that uses scrap from Rubatex to make a composite sheet material. The average wage at Rubatex in Bedford, where hourly workers are represented by the United Steelworkers, is $12 an hour, Hayduk said.
For a particular type of foam rubber, workers at the Bedford plant gather the ingredients, which in a mixer are formed into sheets that are partially cured under heat. Afterward, the sheets are placed in chambers where nitrogen is forced into the rubber under high pressure. Then the sheets are fully cured in presses, where they rise like bread, producing the expanded, closed-cell foam rubber.
In one building a jet of water, strong enough to cut off a finger, is directed by a computer to trim rubber bushings from a thick sheet of rubber. Elsewhere, a half-dozen chemists and three dozen others work in a lab to improve product quality and develop new products.
Making the rubber requires a mixture of both science and craftsmanship.
Experienced workers on the production line learn when newly made rubber feels and smell right, Hayduk said. That's the kind of knowledge that cannot be taught from a book or video, he said.
Many Rubatex employees have been with the company for years. Hayduk had two watches sitting on a shelf in his office ready to present to workers who have spent 40 years with the company. "Around here, a 10-year employee is a rookie, really," he said.
by CNB