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Six successful firms planning for the
future of the environment
volume 4 no. 17
manufacturing
& distributing
Ted Clark,
president and CEO.
royal adhesives & sealants
Manufacturer aims for a nearly VOC-free product line
by julie schaeffer
royal adhesives & sealants (ras)
started as a traditional company with
a green vision, but that is changing:
CEO Ted Clark expects 90 percent of
its products to use no or low VOCs
within the next five years.
at a glance
location:
south bend, in
areas of specialty:
adhesives and
sealants
average
annual sales:
$100 million
employees:
150
Uniroyal sold its adhesives business,
and Clark formed a company that
would ultimately acquire it: Royal
Adhesives & Sealants.
At the time of its founding, RAS
primarily manufactured “old” adhesive
technologies, such as those using rubThe company makes adhesives and
ber dissolved in solvent. But Clark says
sealants used in a variety of industries.
For example, commercial-construction his goal was to build a larger business
with much more diversified adhesive
companies use RAS products to bond
membrane roofing to structures. Other technologies, such as water-based and
big markets are aerospace and defense, reactive adhesives. “We essentially
truck and trailer, recreational vehicles, bought the company for its plants and
its research-and-development lab beand assembly maintenance and repair
cause we wanted to change the product
(where adhesives are used to assemble
mix,” he says.
or repair products).
RAS is a descendant of Uniroyal, a
large tire company that had a number
of rubber-related businesses, including an adhesives business. In 2001,
116
More specifically, Clark—who is from
California and is thus familiar with
environmental standards for sealants
and adhesives—wanted the company’s
green business quarterly jan/feb 2010
products to use low or no VOCs to
meet changing regulations. Approximately 20 years ago, Clark says, California mandated that manufacturers
reduce VOCs by certain levels in coatings, such as paints. But the movement
spread throughout the United States.
“I’ve been in this business for 30 years
and have watched advances in lowVOC technology move from California
[to] across the country,” he says.
Today, Clark says, “one of the most
important things you can do if you’re
in this industry is try to understand
VOC standards and allocate research
and development dollars to products
that will ultimately meet them.”
When he purchased Uniroyal’s
adhesives unit, it had products that
currently complied with VOC stan-
manufacturing
royal adhesives & sealants & distributing
I’ve been in this business for 30 years, and have
watched advances in low-VOC technology move
from California [to] across the country.
Ted Clark, CEO
dards but over time would no longer
do so, especially as the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) became
more involved. “Our strategy was to
go out and organically develop new
technologies or acquire additional
companies,” Clark says.
To that end, over the past five years,
RAS has acquired five different
companies or product lines that have
technologies that will meet current
and future EPA standards, and has
since developed and manufactured
those companies’ products in the
RAS manufacturing facility in South
Bend, Indiana.
The company’s biggest challenge has
been converting customers from old
to new adhesive technologies, because, as Clark explains, “there aren’t
any drop-in replacements for the old
technologies.”
As an example, he explains that a
company may be using a rubber sealant with a fast-drying solvent and may
allow the product to move down the
assembly line quickly. But then, due
to new regulations, that company has
to use a different sealant.
with each customer to decide which
one to use. “You can’t solve the VOC
issue with one technology,” Clark says.
“You have to use five or six different
technologies, and you have to work
directly with each customer on its
applications.”
Clark’s approach is clearly working. Today the company has annual revenues
of approximately $100 million, and is
moving toward a product line that is
almost completely VOC-free. “Currently, 55 percent of our products use
new, low-VOC technologies, and 45
percent use older technologies,” Clark
says. “But I expect that over the next
five years, about 90 percent of everything we sell will use new, low-VOC
technologies.” gbq
RAS' brand LVOC
adhesive/sealant is
used for industrial
applications.
“A water-based product will take
longer to dry, so it can’t be used with
a company that has concerns about
production speed,” Clark explains.
“In that case, we might consider a twopart reactive product, where you mix
part A and part B together to get a
quick-drying chemical reaction.”
As a result, Clark says it’s important
for RAS to have a toolkit of technologies at its disposal; then it can work
ISO:
9001/2008
2001 West Washington Street South Bend, Indiana 46628
1-800-999-GLUE
www.royaladhesives.com
green business quarterly jan/feb 2010
117