Ex-HP engineer helps company scale peaks in competitive sector

FREDERICK – When large companies need to manufacture products they look to Peak Industries Inc. in Longmont to provide the detailed services they require.
The company specializes in manufacturing low- to mid-quantity batches of high-value products. This includes medial equipment used in hospitals and doctors’ offices and commercial goods used by professionals and companies nationwide.
Peak manufactures commercial products for Hewlett-Packard Co., Coinstar Inc. and Particle Measuring Systems Inc. The company builds optical jukebox data storage systems, self-service kiosks and particle measurement counters for the respective companies.
“We build product for StorageTek for Hewlett-Packard and for some of the big Front Range names in terms of storage equipment,´ said Mark Hopkins, president of Peak Industries. “And then we do some things for companies you wouldn’t necessarily have heard of. We have a lot of California-based customers … and we have some smaller locally based businesses.”
Hewlett-Packard has Peak Industries build its optical jukebox data storage system because the company has a record of quality.
“Mark is an ex-HP guy who knows our business needs and has been a great partner who is building these pretty complex pieces of machinery,´ said Jeff Kato, director of Hewlett-Packard’s automation business segment of data storage. “They are more nimble and are more adaptable to our products than others are.
Peak manufactures 150 devices a month for Hewlett-Packard. These devices range from desktop storage modules to devices that are large enough to stand it.
Peak is also a registered device manufacturer with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and it builds all of its medical products under FDA scrutiny.
“Typically we are building complex machinery like a kidney dialysis machine,” Hopkins said.
The company manufactures a metabolism analyzer for Healthetech Inc, a home hemodialysis machine for Aksys Ltd. and a spinal nerve detection system for Nuvasive Inc.
In 2004, Hopkins said the company hopes to have $75 million in revenues.

Out of plastic
Peak Industries was founded in 1996 as a spin off of DTM Products Inc., a Longmont-based injection-molding firm. At the time, customers of DTM were asking company officials to assemble the pieces they manufactured.
This desire to manufacture and provide labor for others, led to the inception of Peak Industries.
“We started with a relatively small crew, maybe 15 people doing really simple assemblies, which included snapping together plastic parts,” Hopkins said. “We were fortunate enough to align ourselves with some pretty key players and we started expanding the business.”
A year into the business, Hopkins said he realized the company was selling labor, which could be found for a lower rate in Asia.
“Selling labor in one of the highest-labor cost countries in the world is not a sustainable, long-term strategic plan,” he said. “We got together and thought of markets that were sustainable in the Colorado economy and what we thought of was lower- to medium-volume, high-complexity, high-engineering content, high-quality requirement markets.”
The company now employs about 300 people with an average wage rate of $13 per hour. The company atmosphere is one of acceptance and understanding that different people have different needs.
Peak has a coffee club, where members have 50 cents a week deducted from their paychecks to have the privilege of drinking Starbucks coffee at work. Hopkins is active companywide with his monthly “Lunch with Mark” meetings which allow employees to discuss issues and ideas and he abides by the “no-door” policy – no one has a door.

The creation of an entrepreneur
Hopkins decided to move to Colorado from upstate New York after falling in love with the area during a ski trip.
He decided to work at Hewlett- Packard because the company had facilities in Colorado.
He worked at the Fort Collins location as a mechanical engineer and while there he decided he wanted to start his own company, but knew he couldn’t get the experience he needed in his current position.
So, Hopkins accepted a position in Boulder working for Micromotion Inc. as its vice president of manufacturing.
“I knew I wanted to found my own company and I knew that I didn’t know what I needed to know, so I looked for a position where I could get more practical manufacturing management experience,” he said.
In 1996 Hopkins met Bob Grubb, president of DTM, through networking with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. The two sat down and decided to start the manufacturing firm with Hopkins at the helm.
“I think there are some characteristics of entrepreneurs that are pretty common and are well documented, but I think there are a lot of things you need to learn to be successful,” he said. “Basically I think it comes from passion to want to create something where there wasn’t something before. And if you have that I think the rest of it can come naturally.”

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