PORT ANGELES — Let the timed rollout begin.
Bob Larsen, named CEO of the Composite Recycling Technology Center (CRTC) on April 7, said Tuesday he will make a series of upbeat announcements on the CRTC beginning Friday.
Larsen, formerly the CRTC board president, would not elaborate.
Friday’s announcement is “a business arrangement, and it’s a big one,” he said.
On Monday, Larsen said he will deliver the CRTC’s first-quarter status report to Port of Port Angeles commissioners.
That will be followed by four to six weeks of business and community group meetings that will culminate in divulging, later this summer, the identity of a CRTC consumer product that will be manufactured from recycled composite fiber scraps.
Larsen’s message Tuesday: Stay tuned.
Recycled carbon fiber can be fashioned into products ranging from solar panel frames to ski poles, from computer cases to snowboards — products in which the aerospace industry has no interest.
Larsen said he is managing expectations and being attentive to competition in the fledgling industry, in which the CRTC is one of the first players.
“If they know what we are doing and the price point we are coming in, it changes the whole structure of our market,” he said.
“We want to protect our position in our market niche that will contribute directly to the success of our product.”
The scraps also will be pressed into rolls to be sold to other manufacturers at the CRTC’s 25,000-square-foot port building at 2020 W. 19th St. at William R. Fairchild International Airport, said port Director of Business Development Jennifer States, who also serves as the CRTC’s vice president of external affairs.
“At first, we’ll start with one single product, then moving forward, there will be multiple products plus rolled goods,” States said.
Larsen said one goal is proving that carbon-fiber scraps can be recycled into usable products.
“This recycling issue has been one of the biggest thorns in the side of carbon-fiber product industries across the world,” he said.
Peninsula College will occupy 5,000 square feet of the building for classrooms and lab space for its advanced manufacturing composite technology program.
The building, which cost $1.5 million to construct in 2010-11 with mostly port but some city funds, was a shell with a dirt floor when it was designated for CRTC purposes more than a year ago.
The building was upgraded for the CRTC and Peninsula College with an additional $4 million in county, state and federal grants.
An additional approximately $300,000 was committed by the port to pay for bid alternatives including solar panels and a solar hot-water system for total infrastructure funding of $5.8 million for the project.
Another $1.35 million came from the port for 2015-17 that went directly to the CRTC under a contract for economic development services under which Larsen will make his presentation to the port Monday.
The port allocation to the CRTC includes cash and in-kind funds that cover the time States spends on CRTC-related activities.
The CRTC is awaiting word on an additional $1.9 million grant from the state Clean Energy Fund for equipment, States said.
“It’s literally anticipated any day,” she said Tuesday.
Larsen, who said he will be winding down his involvement in his renewable-energy consulting company Obotech LLC of Port Angeles, will earn $47,000 this year in take-home pay as part of a salary that won’t begin until midyear.
Larsen has proposed a $120,000-a-year salary to the CRTC board. He said that is far less than the average $160,000 that CEOs of Clallam County nonprofits now earn.
The CRTC also announced this week the appointment of David Walter and Ray Grove to the board of directors.
Grove had a 35-year career with Boeing, where he was on the commercial airplanes product development team and led the company’s carbon-fiber recycling activities before his retirement.
Walter had a 34-year career at DuPont Co. and has extensive experience in sales, marketing, operations and global business management and development, States said.
He is a certified project management professional and a much-sought-after speaker on sustainability, she said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
