When Travis Industries moved in March 2004 to a 476,000-square-foot Boeing building in Mukilteo, it confirmed the company’s determination to stay all-American.
As in other sectors, some companies in the wood stove and fireplace industry are moving the manufacturing of parts or even whole products to foreign countries, said Kurt Rumens, Travis’ president and general manager.
“I think the challenge for us over the next five years is to find ways to manufacture and fabricate these in the U.S. and be competitive,” Rumens said.
With that in mind, Travis has spent about $2 million annually the past five years to upgrade its manufacturing technology. Additionally, the company has relatively little turnover among its work force, which has helped to control costs, Rumens said.
In order to remain an innovator with products that its competitors don’t have, Travis also has worked to enforce its patent rights.
“There has to be a healthy respect for innovation,” said Rumens, who refers to the work his research and development department does as “imagineering,” a term borrowed from the Disney Co.
So far, in a test against a big rival, Travis has won the patent war. In April, a U.S. District Court judge in Seattle ruled that none of Travis’ products infringed on patents held by Hearth &Home Technologies of Lakeville, Minn.
That summary judgment, made before the case even went to a jury trial, ended a lawsuit brought by Hearth &Home in 2003, a few months after Travis first accused it of patent infringement. That original lawsuit brought by Travis also has been settled.
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