Future Fabric: Palmer Lake company taps new technolgy for clothing line
OEL Worldwide Industries, headquartered in Palmer Lake, has teamed up with Boulder-based Outlast Technologies to create an all-purpose line of base-layer clothing — the inner layer of clothing, worn next to the skin — featuring Outlast’s heat-management technology, which responds to changes in body temperature. It’s the first foray into product development for Outlast, which is producing the line designed by OEL. For OEL, it’s another step for a company that has already reinvented itself in the past few years — and a chance to go beyond the industrial market it currently serves. OEL began about 20 years ago, providing the telecommunications field with specialized tooling such as crimping tools. Then, a few years ago, OEL was caught in the bust end of a boom-and-bust cycle for the telecommunications industry. “We live and die by the book, ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’” said OEL sales and marketing director Kevin McAlpin, referring to the best-selling book about dealing with change. “So we’re going, our cheese moved, so we have to do something different.” The company, which had always sold insulated tools, began manufacturing its own line of double-insulated tools. “As an electrician, you can’t work around energized equipment without them,” McAlpin said. “So we started making insulated tools our primary focus.” One client company, impressed by the quality and price of OEL’s tools, suggested OEL also produce clothing for electrical workers. “As we studied our market, we found that anybody who works around energized equipment, they had to wear arc-flash clothing,” McAlpin said. So in 2008, OEL designed and began selling a line of arc-flash-protective clothing. OEL, though, faced a common complaint about such clothing: It’s too hot. “So guys weren’t wearing it,” McAlpin said. “Guys who aren’t wearing it and are involved in an accident are usually either critically injured or killed.” OEL, he said, wanted to eliminate that decision of comfort vs. safety. So when OEL learned about Outlast and its technology, OEL sought the company out. “The next thing you know, we partnered with them,” McAlpin said. The result: OEL StructureWear, “powered by Outlast.” The line of base-layer clothing — which is beginning with T-shirts and long pants — contains microcapsules inside the fibers with a phase-change material that absorbs excess body heat, stores it and releases it. The more familiar technology of wicking, which removes perspiration, is reactive. Outlast’s technology, which interacts with both the body’s micro-climate and the environment, goes beyond moisture management. “What our technology does is, it’s proactively reducing that heat buildup so you don’t have the moisture that you have to pull away,” said Heather Manuel, North America sales and marketing director for Outlast. And when the body starts to chill, the clothing releases heat back. Another element is odor management. StructureWear includes anti-microbial technology that suppresses odor-causing bacteria. The companies agreed that Outlast would provide the technology and be responsible for manufacturing; OEL would design the clothing and get it to market through its distribution network. OEL, with a dozen employees, also has about 80 sales representatives; its products are carried in more than 500 industrial-supply stores, such as Crescent Electric’s 100-plus locations. “What really makes OEL special in my mind is their extreme enthusiasm and their distributor network, and their ability to help us get our name out there,” said Mike Henshaw, director of operations for Outlast. OEL began funneling StructureWear into that network last month. Outlast’s technology can be found in other products, including footwear and pet apparel, through licensing arrangements with other companies. This is the first time Outlast has been involving in producing a product line, though. “What we like about the approach is it allows us to help them (OEL) get what they need,” Henshaw said. “Often, when you put a raw material forth and depend on someone else to do everything else, it doesn’t always come together as I think it has in this case.” While designed with OEL’s arc-flash clothing in mind, “what we’re finding out is this stuff is so far-reaching,” McAlpin said. The market, he said, could expand to anyone wearing any type of uniform, such as road workers and firefighters. OEL is sending samples to police and fire departments across the country. “What’s exciting for OEL is that we now have a product line that takes into account a complete staff, as opposed to a specialist within a staff,” McAlpin said. So when a sales rep approaches an OEL customer such as New Course Steel, for example, that rep now has a product that could appeal to more than just the electrical workers on staff. There’s also the obvious potential to go beyond the work world to sports and outdoor recreation, with McAlpin setting up meetings with companies such as Bass Pro Shops and Big 5 Sporting Goods. “I feel like we’re a rocket ship sitting on the pad,” he said. One challenge in a “pioneering line” such as StructureWear is that it is difficult to launch with a wide variety of items and styles, McAlpin said: “I can’t load up our shelves with everything while we’re trying to teach people about the technology.” But OEL plans to quickly expand the line beyond T-shirts and long pants with a progression of styles and colors. “Working with OEL is a lot of fun,” Henshaw said. “I’ll get a call from Kevin and he’ll say, ‘I’ve been thinking about briefs. Now I need long-sleeve T-shirts. Then a do-rag and workmen socks. So we’re working on all these as well.” StructureWear should fuel continuing growth for the company, McAlpin said. “We’ve seen double-digit growth in each of the last three years in a down economy,” he said. Three years ago, the business was below $1 million in sales. By the end of next year, he said, “we should be in the tens of millions.” OEL is not structuring its future solely around StructureWear, though. “It will be a line that we embrace dearly,” McAlpin said, “but our arc-flash gear, our tools, our gloves will always be a big part of who we are. That’s how people recognize us in this marketplace.” — IN DEPTH • For more information on StructureWear or how to order: http://oelstructurewear.com or call 1-800-818-2244 • To learn more about OEL Worlwide Industries and its other products: www.oelsales.com • For more about Outlast Technologies: www.outlast.com Disclaimer: Article submitters are solely responsible for the content of their articles. 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