How are business leaders throughout Whatcom County innovating in their industries? Here, six area businesses address innovation in recruiting, sales and marketing, technology, distribution, customer experience, and strategy.
Ever since Diana Ambauen-Meade started Scratch and Peck Feeds in her backyard in Bellingham in 2009, her company has embraced innovation. Company “firsts” include the first non-GMO-verified manufacturer of animal feed in North America, in 2012; the first feed manufacturer in the nation to hold that certification, plus Certified Organic, in 2013; and the first and only feed company in the nation to be B-Corp certified in 2017 (a certification of for-profit companies that satisfies environmental and social standards).
After seven years in Bellingham, the company needed much more space. So, recently they moved from their 15,000-square-foot facility in the Irongate industrial area into a 40,000-square-foot plant in Burlington. The three owners—Diana Ambauen-Meade, husband Dennis Meade, and son Bryon Meade—plus most of the company’s 29 employees still reside in Bellingham and commute.
Scratch and Peck produces feed for poultry, pigs, and goats. “We use our business as a force for good,” said Marketing Manager Caroline Kinsman.
At the heart of the company’s unique strategy are exclusively regional sourcing and self-milling. “We source all of our grains from organic farmers in the Pacific Northwest, and we mill all of our feeds here, too,” Kinsman said.
“This is virtually unheard of in the feed industry, which is largely international, with sourcing from the commodity market. We’re doing some pretty cool things for our industry. All are near and dear to our mission.”
Distribution: Win-Win Partnerships
Innovation in working with their customers’ supply chains is the lifeblood of Anderson Paper & Packaging’s (AP&P) approach to wide distribution. The 72-employee company is headquartered in Ferndale, and operates branches in Renton, Washington and Portland, Oregon.
“Our DNA is all about creating partnerships with suppliers and customers,” said President Rick Anderson, who founded the Whatcom Top 100 company in 1992. One way they do that, he said, is to standardize and consolidate a customer’s products.
An example: aerospace customers who were shipping items in a variety of different-sized boxes. “We standardized and consolidated their packaging so that their volume went up and their prices went down,” Anderson said. “That’s a double win-win—for them and their customers, and for them and us.”
One customer asked for two boxes for shipping of a two-part product. The company designed one box that held both parts; with a single, better-designed box they could buy in higher quantities, cutting costs. And, they could provide their customers savings and convenience (carrying home only one box). That solution also made it easier for their wholesale customers to fulfill orders and require less shelf space at retail.
Whatcom County-based The Woods Coffee, founded in 2002 by the Herman family of Lynden, is a long-standing customer of Anderson’s. “We sell Wes (Herman) a lot of packaging and supplies,” Anderson said. “We also haul some of his freight up to Canada, because I have two trucks a day going to Canada. That’s an example of the partnerships we create with customers.”
AP&P’s core business has three divisions: packaging (including its own paper manufacturing plant); janitorial; and workplace-safety supplies. For each division, Anderson created a six-segment optimization program. “Supply chain optimization wins business and keeps business going long-term,” Anderson said. “That’s different than someone who just sells products online.”
Sales and Marketing: Design Your Own Brace
Cascade Dafo in Ferndale didn’t stop innovating after founder and owner Don Buethorn invented the DAFO, a patented flexible-plastic, lightweight, whole-ankle brace that changed the orthotics industry. Today, extraordinary approaches to sales and marketing keep them out front globally.
Their online presence is exceptionally rich: Social media meshes with their website to drive traffic to products and services. The company employs 280 and actually operates as two organizations:
- Cascade Dafo manufacturing in Ferndale, just west of the I-5 Slater Road exit, where they make external support braces and Cascade Prosthetics and Orthotics.
- And clinics with locations in Ferndale (attached to the manufacturing facility) and Mount Vernon where clinicians provide orthotics and prosthetics from all makers.
Orthotists everywhere need continuing education to keep their certification. Cascadedafo.com offers those classes online—for free. “We are at the forefront of that as a manufacturer,” said Loretta Sheldon, Director of Business Development and Education. Cascade Dafo also offers online education for patients, parents, physical therapists, and clinicians around the world. “Education from the website helps the patient get a better brace,” she said.
The company’s social-media platforms engage users and lead to the website, where a “Creation Station” allows young patients to choose colors for the straps and padding of their braces, and create designs that technicians will embed into the plastic.
“Kids play with the interactive pages to try out different designs,” Sheldon said. “They can show Grandma, or email it to their clinician. No one else has done that. It helps ease any fear a child might have before the initial visit.”
Recruiting: A No-Resumes Approach
“Everything we’re doing is contrary to what everyone else is doing,” said Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap, a woodworking and product-innovation company in Ferndale. Founded in 1997, the company has 48 employees.
Take recruiting, for example. “Resumes are lies. We don’t accept them,” Akers said. Instead, applicants are asked to speak into their smartphone for one to two minutes about who they are and why FastCap should hire them, and send it as a YouTube link. That might result in an invitation for a Test Day at FastCap. “Everyone here will watch you. If everyone agrees, we’ll offer a Test Week.”
After that, employees meet in a conference room. “If everyone agrees, we confirm: Keep or go home,” Akers said. “All of our people are involved in hiring. Our record is impeccable.”
Other companies have human resource departments, paperwork, processing. “It’s all bull,” Akers said. “Worthless. The only thing that matters is, can that individual work as a team member and contribute?” Employees know that, he said, but an HR director cannot.
“We have people applying from around the world. We have a man coming from Kazakstan; he’ll be here Sunday….”
