PORT ANGELES — The fledgling Composite Recycling Technology Center will unveil plans by Oct. 31 to begin producing its first commercial product, CEO Bob Larsen said Monday.
The CRTC’s second carbon-fiber-scrap-based manufactured product will be announced by Jan. 31, Larsen told a joint meeting of Clallam County and Port of Port Angeles commissioners at the county courthouse during the regular Monday county commissioners work session. What the second product will be is currently undetermined.
In a later interview, Larsen told Peninsula Daily News that the first product is classified in the “high performance sporting goods” category.
Larsen predicted that income from total sales is expected to be $100,000 by Dec. 31.
“We know what we want to make, what we can sell for. We know how much it costs,” Larsen said. “We have an idea, a design.
“We’ve got to nail down the sales and distribution network and got to get people outside of our organization to test and make sure the product does what we want it to.”
5 million pounds
Larsen said he hopes the CRTC will be processing 5 million pounds of carbon-fiber scrap material after five years, at which time its new port-owned quarters will be too small and, Larsen predicted, the CRTC will have to move into a larger facility.
The lightweight sporting goods market — golf clubs, hockey sticks, rackets, bicycles, skis and snowboards — is a high-demand industry sector with a strong future, according to a July 6 report (http://tinyurl.com/PDN-crtcproduct) by www.globenewswire.com.
The website is part of a news distribution alliance between GlobeNewswire, which supplies content to the media and investors, and the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Larsen and CRTC board Chairman Dave Walter gave the second-quarter update on the CRTC to the commissioners and a roomful of residents and public officials Monday.
They included Port Angeles Mayor Patrick Downie and Peninsula College President Luke Robins, whose school will house classes at the port-owned building that will be shared with the CRTC.
“We’ll all be there as a team,” Walter said.
Aug. 1 move
Larsen said the CRTC, a nonprofit whose new home is largely financed with public funding, including a $2 million U.S. Department of Commerce grant, will move Aug. 1 into 2220 W. 18th St. and begin prototype development by mid-August.
Further funding came from a $1 million Clallam County Opportunity Fund grant and $1.35 million in port funding in 2015-17 for economic development services.
Larsen, who said he will soon start drawing a paycheck but is working upward of 60 hours a week, said the CRTC has hired four more employees in the second quarter — three from the North Olympic Peninsula and one from Kitsap County.
That brings the total to nine full-time-equivalent employees.
Five more full-time-equivalent employees will be hired by the end of 2016, with six more hired in 2017, Larsen said in his PowerPoint presentation.
But the inability to obtain a government Clean Energy Fund grant “really hurt” the CRTC’s progress, Larsen said, adding it stalled development by three or four months.
“We had to stop everything we were doing,” he said. “We had to find a product we could make with the machinery and equipment we had.
“We had to do a different sales and distribution strategy. We really had to scramble. We are really inventing as we go along.”
The CRTC earlier this summer also became a West Coast satellite location for the Department of Energy’s Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Milestones met by the CRTC included implementation of a quality-control process, the ongoing construction and verification of prototypes and development of plans for wholesale and retail strategies, Larsen said.
Sequim-area Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias asked Larsen if the CRTC utilized the county Economic Development Corp.
The CRTC uses the EDC “for information and general knowledge,” Larsen responded.
Employees, Larsen said, will work extensively on research and development.
Licensing that research and development is part of the CRTC’s profit-making strategy, he said in the later interview.
The CRTC showed a bank balance of $184,232 in June and expenditures of $57,812, with a balance of $196,991 on July 23.
Staff costs account for 75 percent of expenditures.
The end-of-June balance sheet showed fixed assets of $14,277 and liabilities of $10,277.
Move-in costs are projected at $35,000.
Third-quarter goals include completing and validating a prototype of a product, finalizing a “market channel” for the high-performance sports-equipment item and hiring an engineer and a technician, according to Larsen’s PowerPoint.
A “production celebration event” will be after the Nov. 8 general election.
But production efforts will encounter a “significant barrier” if no Clean Energy Funds 2 are awarded, according to the presentation.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
