Peak Industries? specialization to high tech results in growth

LONGMONT ? Peak Industries Inc., a contract manufacturer of electronic and electro-mechanical assembly, is a growing business in a growing market.

Ranked No. 10 on the Boulder County Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list, Longmont-based Peak Industries grew 161 percent, from revenues of $15.7 million in 1999 to $41 million in 2000. According to President Mark Hopkins, the contract manufacturing industry is growing 25 percent each year and is currently a $100 billion market.

This growth has led to Peak’s planned expansion of 45,000 square feet this year and the addition of 210 people from 20 employees five years ago.

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Hopkins attributes his company’s growth to the specialization happening in the manufacturing marketplace. The trend, which he says started 10 years ago, is still picking up steam. “It is growing because everybody is specializing,” Hopkins says. “You have to take a good look at what your core competencies are.

“We manufacture products for companies who have chosen not to make it themselves. Developing products is what they do, and we focus on manufacturing excellence. We have the equipment and fixed overhead to do it.”

Peak produces products and parts in three major markets: medical and life sciences, industrial instrumentation and wireless products. Peak can manufacture part of the product or the entire package. Some companies provide the specifications, and Peak builds and delivers the products directly to its customers.

A popular product built by Peak is the avalanche beacon, which is designed by Rescue Technologies and sold by Backcountry Access. “It is a lot more effective than anything that has ever been developed in the market,” Hopkins says.

Peak also manufactures the antennas for a local wireless company’s bay stations. “We are set up to make smart products,” Hopkins says, “with electronics embedded in them. We don’t care what the end market is; it really doesn’t matter if it utilizes our capability.”

Peak made the switch to smart products after suffering some losses resulting from the labor market as a young company. “It affected us early in our career because we were doing work that had a high-labor content, and that moved offshore, so we moved to high tech, lower labor-content products.”

Peak originated the injection molding plastics sector as a spin-off of DTM Products, which was acquired by Flextronics in 1997. Hopkins met the president of DTM at a chamber meeting and was asked if he wanted to partner up and create the assembly business for their plastics business. These meager beginnings evolved into electronics manufacturing, and opened the door for high-tech customers. Today Peak serves such companies as Agilent Technologies, Ball Wireless, Carrier Access and Picosecond Labs.

Hopkins came to Colorado to work for Hewlett-Packard in Fort Collins as a mechanical engineer in 1981. After nine years he went to work for Micromotion and stayed for six years. And in 1996, he founded Peak Industries at a time when the trend in contract manufacturing was just beginning.

Hopkins says the Longmont community has been very supportive of his company. And as a member of the Longmont Area Economic Chamber board, he has a channel to participate with the city on issues affecting the local economy.

One issue that hasn’t hit Peak hard in recent years is the tight labor market. Hopkins says he has created a corporate culture minus the corporate politics. “We create an opportunity for people to grow and to really own their part of the business. People like working here.”